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35Nationalism and PatriotismIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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David Copp, Jean Hampton and John E. Roemer (eds), The Idea of DemocracyRadical Philosophy. forthcoming.
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13Review of Lainie Friedman Ross, Children in Medical Research: Access Versus Protection (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (9). 2006.
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97How should we teach sex?Journal of Philosophy of Education 32 (3). 1998.In the face of differences about how sex should be taught to young persons, and consistent with a liberal principle of neutrality, educationalists can adopt one of two strategies. The ‘retreat to basics’ consists in teaching only a basic agreed code of sexual conduct, or a set of agreed principles of sexual morality. The ‘conjunctive–disjunctive’ strategy consists in teaching the facts of sexual activity together with the various possible evaluations of these facts. Both strategies are beset wit…Read more
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23The Marxist ethic of self-realization: individuality and communityIn John David Gemmill Evans (ed.), Moral philosophy and contemporary problems, Cambridge University Press. 1987.
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100Moral CompromisePhilosophy 87 (3): 403-420. 2012.A moral compromise is a compromise on moral matters; it is agreement in the face of moral disagreement but where there is agreement on the importance of consensus -namely that it secures a morally desirable outcome. It is distinguishable from other forms of agreement, and an important distinction between moral compromise with public agreement and moral compromise with public disagreement is also made. Circumstances in which the former might be permissible are outlined, and the sense in which it …Read more
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Child Protection: An Holistic ViewAustralian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics 7 (2). 2005.
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83For our own goodAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (3). 1994.This Article does not have an abstract
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Liberty Liberating Cyberspace: Civil Liberties, Human Rights & The Internet (review)Ends and Means 3 (1). 1998.
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32Classical Liberalism: The Unvanquished Ideal by David Conway Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1995, ix + 150 pp., £40.00 (review)Philosophy 71 (278): 628-. 1996.
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50Political philosophy and the concept of the nationJournal of Value Inquiry 29 (3): 379-392. 1995.
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325Is it rape? On acquaintance rape and taking women's consent seriously - by Joan McGregor, making sense of sexual consent - by mark Cowling & Paul Reynolds, the logic of consent, the diversity and deceptiveness of consent as a defence to criminal conduct - by Peter Westen, and consent to sexual relations - by Lan WertheimerJournal of Applied Philosophy 24 (2). 2007.
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144Wrongful lifePhilosophy 79 (3): 403-420. 2004.I argue that it is wrong deliberately to bring into existence an individual whose life we can reasonably expect will be of very poor quality. The individual's life would on balance be worth living but would nevertheless fall below a certain threshold. Additionally the prospective parents are unable to have any other child who would enjoy a better existence. Against the claims of John Harris and John Robertson I argue that deliberately to conceive such a child would not be to exercise the right t…Read more
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48One Body but Many Kinds of Sex and Procreation: A Liberal ResponseRoczniki Filozoficzne 63 (3): 75-85. 2015.I contrast a liberal and a conservative approach to the morality of sex, endorsing the former with a concession as to the special nature of sex, and note Pruss’ philosophical and theological endorsement of the latter. I criticize his argumentative strategy in three regards: first, he defends Christian love as equivalent to benevolence; second, he allows for only a moral evaluation of sex; third, he moves too quickly from some factual claims to others, and thence to normative conclusions. His acc…Read more
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35IntroductionRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 40 1-5. 1996.As befits a volume devoted to the topic of pluralism the contributing pieces collected here are varied. Their concern is with very different kinds of difference, and their conclusions range from an insistence that pluralism is both inevitable and desirable to a belief that it is unsustainable and perhaps remediable. The starting point for any discussion of pluralism is a recognition that we inhabit a world of differences. These differences are exhibited in moral outlooks, cultural identities, wa…Read more
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8The obligations and responsibilities of parenthoodIn David Archard & David Benatar (eds.), Procreation and parenthood: the ethics of bearing and rearing children, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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Queen's University, BelfastSchool of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and PoliticsRetired faculty