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139Moral Disagreement among PhilosophersIn Michael Bergmann & Patrick Kain (eds.), Challenges to Moral and Religious Belief: Disagreement and Evolution, Oxford University Press. pp. 23-39. 2014.There is not only moral disagreement among ordinary people: there is also moral disagreement among philosophers. Since philosophers might seem to be in the best possible position to reach the truth about morality, such disagreement may suggest that either there is no single truth about morality, or at least if there is, it is unknowable. The goal of this paper is to rebut this argument: the best explanation of moral disagreement among philosophers is quite compatible with the thesis that many mo…Read more
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220Primitively rational belief-forming processesIn Andrew Reisner & Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen (eds.), Reasons for Belief, Cambridge University Press. pp. 180--200. 2011.Intuitively, it seems that some belief-forming practices have the following three properties: 1. They are rational practices, and the beliefs that we form by means of these practices are themselves rational or justified beliefs. 2. Even if in most cases these practices reliably lead to correct beliefs (i.e., beliefs in true propositions), they are not infallible: it is possible for beliefs that are formed by means of these practices to be incorrect (i.e., to be beliefs in false propositions). 3.…Read more
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62Critical Notice of "The Realm of Reason" by Christopher Peacocke (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 74 (3): 776-791. 2007.This is a critical notice of Christopher Peacocke's book, "The Realm of Reason" (Oxford University Press, 2004)
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400The normative force of reasoningNoûs 40 (4). 2006.What exactly is reasoning? Like many other philosophers, I shall endorse a broadly causal conception of reasoning. Reasoning is a causal process, in which one mental event (say, one’s accepting the conclusion of a certain argument) is caused by an antecedent mental event (say, one’s considering the premises of the argument). Just like causal accounts of action and causal accounts of perception, causal accounts of reasoning have to confront a version of what has come to be known as the problem of…Read more
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653Justified InferenceSynthese 189 (2): 273-295. 2012.What is the connection between justification and the kind of consequence relations that are studied by logic? In this essay, I shall try to provide an answer, by proposing a general conception of the kind of inference that counts as justified or rational.
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125Two Grades of Non-consequentialismCriminal Law and Philosophy 10 (4): 795-814. 2016.In this paper, I explore how to accommodate non-consequentialist constraints with a broadly value-based conception of reasons for action. It turns out that there are two grades of non-consequentialist constraints. The first grade involves attaching ethical importance to such distinctions as the doing/allowing distinction, and the distinction between intended and unintended consequences that is central to the Doctrine of Double Effect. However, at least within the value-based framework, this firs…Read more
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325Defending double effectRatio 24 (4): 384-401. 2011.This essay defends a version of the Doctrine of Double Effect (DDE) – the doctrine that there is normally a stronger reason against an act that has a bad state of affairs as one of its intended effects than against an otherwise similar act that has that bad state of affairs as an unintended effect. First, a precise account of this version of the DDE is given. Secondly, some suggestions are made about why we should believe the DDE, and about why it is true. Finally, a solution is developed to the…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Meta-Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |