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40Bald LiesCogito 10 (3): 235-237. 1996.I present a short, informal vignette that poses the question of whether altering one's appearance by wearing a wig counts as deception, since in both cases one (apparently) tries to bring about false beliefs in others. The bald-headed wig-wearer tries to get others to believe falsely that he has a thick head of hair. If deception is generally wrong, why isn't wig-wearing wrong also?
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39Review: Sabina Lovibond, Ethical Formation (Harvard, 2002) (review)Mind 113 (449): 189-192. 2004.
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38Who are the best judges of theistic arguments?Sophia 35 (2): 1-12. 1996.The best judge of the soundness of a philosophical argument is the philosopher with the greatest philosophical aptitude, the deepest knowledge of the relevant subject matter, the most scrupulous character, and a disinterested position with respect to the subject matter. This last feature is important because even a highly intelligent and scrupulous judge may find it hard to reach the right conclusion about a subject in which he or she has a vested interest. When the subject of inquiry is the s…Read more
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37Review of Robert Almeder Blind Realism: An Essay on Human Knowledge and Natural Science (review)Philosophical Quarterly 45 (178): 127-129. 1995.
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34Epistemic Value, edited by Adrian Haddock, Alan Millar, and Duncan PritchardMind 123 (490): 609-612. 2014.
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32John Hare God's call: Moral realism, God's commands, and human autonomy. (William B. Eerdmans, 2001). (review)Religious Studies 38 (2): 225-246. 2002.
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31Review of Timothy Chappell, Ethics and Experience: Life Beyond Moral Theory (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (12). 2009.
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31Temporal Wholes and the Problem of EvilReligious Studies 29 (3). 1993.I borrow an idea from the fiction of C. S. Lewis that future outcomes may affect the value of past events, defend this idea via the concept of a 'temporal whole' and show its promise as a part of a theodicy and its resonance with Christian theism.
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31Redeeming the TimeThe Personalist Forum 11 (1): 17-32. 1995.I borrow an idea from the fiction of C. S. Lewis that future outcomes may affect the value of past events. I then defend this idea via the concept of a “temporal whole”, and show its promise as a partial theodicy and its resonance with both Christian theism and a robust personalism.
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30Stephen T. Davis God, reason and theistic proofs. (Edinburgh university press, 1997). (review)Religious Studies 35 (1): 99-111. 1999.
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29Eliminative materialism and substantive commitmentsInternational Philosophical Quarterly (March) 39 (March): 39-49. 1991.This paper is an attempt to bring some order to a classic debate over the mind/body problem. I formulate the dualist, identity, and eliminativist positions and then examine the disagreement between eliminativists and their critics. I show how the apparent impasse between eliminativists and non-eliminativists can be helpfully interpreted in the light of the higher-order debate over methodological versus substantive commitments in philosophy. I argue that non-eliminativist positions can be defende…Read more
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28Christian theism and moral philosophy (edited book)Mercer University Press. 1998.These essays exhibit explanation and argument regarding some of the possible answers to these fundamental questions in moral philosophy.
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27Commentary: Practical Wisdom and TheoryCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 21 (3): 404-408. 2012.This paper is an ethical reflection on the real-life case of "Angela", a highly intelligent but severely anorexic young woman who wishes to refuse all but palliative treatment. It is part of CQHE's "Ethics Committees and Consultants at Work" series, in response to the essay, "Starving for Perfection."
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27More Bad News For The Logical Autonomy of EthicsCanadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2): 203-216. 2007.Since the time of Hume, many philosophers have thought it impossible to deduce an ‘Ought’ from an ‘Is,’ or in general to deduce ‘ethical sentences’ from purely ‘factual sentences.’ This is the thesis of the logical autonomy of ethics. I consider a more recent argument by Toomas Karmo in support of the autonomism, but show its limitations in the context of justification skepticism about ethics.
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26Sinnott–Armstrong's Moral ScepticismRatio 16 (1): 63-82. 2003.Walter Sinnott-Armstrong’s recent defence of moral scepticism raises the debate to a new level, but I argue that it is unsatisfactory because of problems with its assumption of global scepticism, with its use of the Sceptical Hypothesis Argument, and with its use of the idea of contrast classes and the correlative distinction between ‘everyday’ justification and ‘philosophical’ justification. I draw on Chisholm’s treatment of the Problem of the Criterion to show that my claim that I know that, e…Read more
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24Absolutism, Utilitarianism and Agent-Relative ConstraintsInternational Philosophical Quarterly 62 (2): 243-252. 2022.Absolutism—the idea that some kinds of acts are absolutely wrong and must never be done—plays an important role in medical ethics. Nicholas Denyer has defended it from some influential consequentialist critics who have alleged that absolutism is committed to “agent-relative constraints” and therefore intolerably complex and messy. Denyer ingeniously argues that, if there are problems with agent-relative constraints, then they are problems for consequentialism, since it contains agent-relative co…Read more
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23Review: T.L.S. Sprigge,The Rational Foundations of Ethics (review)Philosophical Books 30 (1): 49-51. 1989.
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22God's Call: Moral Realism, God's Commands, and Human Autonomy (review)Religious Studies 38 (2): 225-246. 2002.
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19IntroductionPhilosophical Papers 40 (3): 279-283. 2011.Philosophical Papers, Volume 40, Issue 3, Page 279-283, November 2011
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18Is/Ought FallacyIn Robert Arp, Steven Barbone & Michael Bruce (eds.), Bad Arguments, Wiley. 2018-05-09.This chapter focuses on one of the common fallacies in Western philosophy called the 'is/ought fallacy (IOF)'. Some philosophers conclude that the IOF is not a logical problem but an epistemological one, meaning that even if inferences like this one are logically valid, they cannot be used epistemologically to warrant anyone's real‐life moral beliefs. Arguments do not warrant their conclusions unless the premises of those arguments are themselves warranted, and in the real world, they say, no on…Read more
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13Review: Frances Snare,The Nature of Moral Thinking (review)Philosophical Books 35 (1): 78-80. 1994.
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13The Contingency Cosmological ArgumentIn Michael Bruce & Steven Barbone (eds.), Just the Arguments, Wiley‐blackwell. 2011-09-16.A brief synopsis of the "contingency" version of the cosmological argument for theism, as developed by Samuel Clarke and explained/examined by William Rowe.
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12An Aristotelian Business Ethics?Journal of Applied Philosophy 15 (1): 89-104. 1998.Elaine Sternberg’s Just Business is one of the first book‐length Aristotelian treatments of business ethics. It is Aristotelian in the sense that Sternberg begins by defining the nature of business in order to identify its end, and, thence, normative principles to regulate it. According to Sternberg, the nature of business is ‘the selling of goods or services in order to maximise long‐term owner value’, therefore all business behaviour must be evaluated with reference to the maximisation of long…Read more
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11Ethical Formation (review)Mind 113 (449): 189-192. 2004.A critical review of Sabina Lovibond's book Ethical Formation (2004).
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8Bald LiesCogito 10 (3): 235-237. 1996.It is wrong to deceive people, to get them to believe falsehoods. At least some times, when I wear a wig, I attempt to deceive people about how much hair I have. Why is this not deception? Why is this not wrong? These are the questions I explore.
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7Could there be an Atheistic Political Theology?Forum Philosophicum: International Journal for Philosophy 26 (2): 303-327. 2021.“Only a God can save us.” So says Martin Heidegger in his pessimistic assessment of merely human philosophy’s ability to change the world. The thought is not unique to Heidegger: another thinker who arrived at a similar conclusion was Heidegger’s contemporary and sometime admirer, Carl Schmitt, in his idea of “political theology.” I take up Schmitt’s version of the idea and use it to examine the New Atheism, a relatively recent polemical critique of religion by an informal coalition of English-s…Read more
Leeds, West Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |