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179Practical reasoning as figuring out what is best: Against constructivismTopoi 21 (1-2): 139-152. 2002.
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163The nature and value of knowledge: Three investigations, by Duncan Pritchard, Alan Millar, and Adrian Haddock (review)Analysis 72 (1): 187-189. 2012.This is a review of "The nature and value of knowlege: Three investigations", by Duncan Pritchard, Alan Millar, and Adrian Haddock (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2011).
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269Instrumental rationalityOxford Studies in Metaethics 6 280-309. 2011.Is there any distinctive aspect of rationality that deserves the label of “instrumental rationality”? Recently, Joseph Raz (2005) has argued that instrumental rationality is a “myth”. In this essay, I shall give some qualified support to Raz’s position: as I shall argue, many philosophers have indeed been seduced by certain myths about instrumental rationality. Nonetheless, Raz’s conclusion is too strong. Instrumental rationality is not itself a myth: there really is a distinctive aspect of rati…Read more
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318The "Good" and the "Right" RevisitedPhilosophical Perspectives 23 (1). 2009.Moral philosophy has long been preoccupied by a supposed dichotomy between the "good" and the "right". This dichotomy has been taken to define certain allegedly central issues for ethics. How are the good and the right related to each other? For example, is one of the two "prior" to the other? If so, is the good prior to the right, or is the right prior to the good?
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178Doxastic CorrectnessAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 87 (1): 217-234. 2013.If beliefs are subject to a basic norm of correctness—roughly, to the principle that a belief is correct only if the proposition believed is true—how can this norm guide believers in forming their beliefs? Answer: this norm guides believers indirectly: believers are directly guided by requirements of rationality—which are themselves explained by this norm of correctness. The fundamental connection between rationality and correctness is probabilistic. Incorrectness comes in degrees; for beliefs, …Read more
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197The Weight of Moral ReasonsOxford Studies in Normative Ethics (Ed. Mark Timmons) 3 35-58. 2013.This paper starts by giving an interpretation of the notorious question "Why be moral?" Then, to answer that question, it develops an account of why some moral reasons -- specifically, the moral reasons that ground moral requirements -- are sufficiently weighty that they outweigh all countervailing reasons for action.
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299Sensing values?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (1): 215-223. 2001.This is a reply to Mark Johnston's paper "The Authority of Affect", Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2001).
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Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Meta-Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |