-
724Externalist moral realismSouthern Journal of Philosophy 24 (S1): 23-41. 1986.SOME THINK THAT MORAL REALISTS CANNOT RECOGNIZE THE PRACTICAL OR ACTION-GUIDING CHARACTER OF MORALITY AND SO REJECT MORAL REALISM. THIS FORM OF ANTI-REALISM DEPENDS UPON AN INTERNALIST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY. BUT AN EXTERNALIST MORAL PSYCHOLOGY IS MORE PLAUSIBLE AND ALLOWS THE REALIST A SENSIBLE EXPLANATION OF THE ACTION-GUIDING CHARACTER OF MORALITY. CONSIDERATION OF THE PRACTICAL CHARACTER OF MORALITY, THEREFORE, DOES NOT UNDERMINE AND, INDEED, SUPPORTS MORAL REALISM
-
Self-realization and the common good : Themes in T.h. GreenIn Maria Dimova-Cookson & W. J. Mander (eds.), T.H. Green: Ethics, Metaphysics, and Political Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2006.
-
1067Prospects for Temporal NeutralityIn Craig Callender (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time, Oxford University Press. 2011.
-
125Legal Positivism and Natural Law ReconsideredThe Monist 68 (3): 364-387. 1985.Legal positivism and natural law theory have traditionally been construed as mutually exclusive theories about the relationship between morality and the law. Although I endorse a good deal of this traditional wisdom, I shall argue that we can and should construe LP and NL as complementary theories. So construed, they not only are compatible but also state important truths.
-
280Utilitarian morality and the personal point of viewJournal of Philosophy 83 (8): 417-438. 1986.Consideration of the objection from the personal point of view reveals the resources of utilitarianism. The utilitarian can offer a partial rebuttal by distinguishing between criteria of rightness and decision procedures and claiming that, because his theory is a criterion of rightness and not a decision procedure, he can justify agents' differential concern for their own welfare and the welfare of those close to them. The flexibility in utilitarianism's theory of value allows further rebuttal o…Read more
-
16Skorupski, John, ed. The Cambridge Companion to Mill (review)Review of Metaphysics 53 (4): 960-963. 2000.
-
29Rational egoism and the separateness of personsIn J. Dancy (ed.), Reading Parfit, Blackwell. pp. 96--134. 1997.
-
748Responsibility, Incompetence, and PsychopathyIn The Lindley Lecture, University of Kansas. 2013.This essay articulates a conception of responsibility and excuse in terms of the fair opportunity to avoid wrongdoing and explores its implications for insanity, incompetence, and psychopathy. The fair opportunity conception factors responsibility into conditions of normative competence and situational control and factors normative competence into cognitive and volitional capacities. This supports a conception of incompetence that recognizes substantial impairment of either cognitive or voliti…Read more
-
101Objectivity and dialectical methods in ethicsInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 42 (2). 1999.A cognitivist interpretation of moral inquiry treats it, like other kinds of inquiry, as aiming at true belief. A dialectical conception of moral inquiry represents the justification for a given moral belief as consisting in its intellectual fit with other beliefs, both moral and nonmoral. The essay appeals to semantic considerations to defend cognitivism as a default metaethical view; it defends a dialectical conception of moral inquiry by examining Sidgwick's ambivalence about the probative va…Read more
-
4Sidgwick and the Rationale for Rational EgoismIn Bart Schultz (ed.), Essays on Henry Sidgwick, Cambridge University Press. 1992.
-
50Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics: Rethinking Happiness and DutyPhilosophical Review 108 (4): 576. 1999.This collection of essays contains revised versions of papers delivered at a conference entitled “Duty, Interest, and Practical Reason: Aristotle, Kant, and the Stoics” that was organized by Stephen Engstrom and Jennifer Whiting at the University of Pittsburgh in 1994. One of the main aims of the conference was to bring together scholars on Aristotle, the Stoics, and Kant to reevaluate the common view that Greek and Kantian ethics represent fundamentally opposed conceptions of ethical theory and…Read more
San Diego, California, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |