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32Are the Moral Fixed Points Conceptual Truths?Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (1): 1-9. 2016.Terence Cuneo and Russ Shafer-Landau have recently proposed a new version of moral nonnaturalism, according to which there are nonnatural moral concepts and truths but no nonnatural moral facts. This view entails that moral error theorists are conceptually deficient. We explain why moral error theorists are not conceptually deficient. We then argue that this explanation reveals what is wrong with Cuneo and Shafer-Landau’s view.
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21Why There Really Are No Irreducibly Normative PropertiesIn David Bakhurst, Margaret Olivia Little & Brad Hooker (eds.), Thinking about reasons: themes from the philosophy of Jonathan Dancy, Oxford University Press. pp. 310-336. 2013.Jonathan Dancy thinks that there are irreducibly normative properties. Frank Jackson has given a well-known argument against this view, and I have elsewhere defended this argument against many objections, including one made by Dancy. But Dancy remains unconvinced. In this chapter, I hope to convince him.
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11Practical ReasoningIn Timothy O'Connor & Constantine Sandis (eds.), Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Action, Blackwell. pp. 244-251. 2010.To be able to say what practical reasoning is, we first need to say what reasoning is and what the conclusion of a process of reasoning is. I shall do this in sections 1 and 2. We can then make a distinction between practical and theoretical reasoning. There are three main ways to do this, which I shall survey in sections 3 to 5. I shall end by suggesting that there are different kinds of practical reasoning
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34Can We Believe the Error Theory?Journal of Philosophy 110 (4): 194-212. 2013.According to the error theory, normative judgements are beliefs that ascribe normative properties, even though such properties do not exist. In this paper, I argue that we cannot believe the error theory, and that this means that there is no reason for us to believe this theory. It may be thought that this is a problem for the error theory, but I argue that it is not. Instead, I argue, our inability to believe the error theory undermines many objections that have been made to this theory.
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11Reasons, impossibility and efficient steps: reply to HeuerPhilosophical Studies 151 (1). 2010.Ulrike Heuer argues that there can be a reason for a person to perform an action that this person cannot perform, as long as this person can take efficient steps towards performing this action. In this reply, I first argue that Heuer's examples fail to undermine my claim that there cannot be a reason for a person to perform an action if it is impossible that this person will perform this action. I then argue that, on a plausible interpretation of what 'efficient steps' are, Heuer's claim is cons…Read more
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2Irrealism in Ethics (edited book)Wiley-Blackwell. 2014.Irrealism in Ethics is a collection of six original essays by prominent moral philosophers. The essays discuss various forms of ethical irrealism and present arguments for and against the two major versions of ethical irrealism: expressivism and the error theory.
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37Are normative properties descriptive properties?Philosophical Studies 154 (3). 2011.Some philosophers think that normative properties are identical to descriptive properties. In this paper, I argue that this entails that it is possible to say which descriptive properties normative properties are identical to. I argue that Frank Jackson's argument to show that this is possible fails, and that the objections to this argument show that it is impossible to say which descriptive properties normative properties are identical to. I conclude that normative properties are not identical …Read more
Groningen, Netherlands
Areas of Specialization
| Meta-Ethics |
| Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
| Meta-Ethics |