•  36
    Getting it Right about Parenthood
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 36 (2): 350-352. 2018.
  •  92
    Disgust, Offensiveness and the Law (review)
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (4): 314-321. 2008.
    abstract Martha Nussbaum's concern is to limit the role that emotions can legitimately play in the definition of the criminal law. She would allow nuisance laws to curtail the occasioning of disgust but only disgust of a certain kind. Problems arise for her account when she extends this analysis to the prevention of offensiveness. Unavoidable is an evaluation of those beliefs subscription to which explains the taking of offence. Hence the principal problem for a liberalism of the kind Nussbaum d…Read more
  •  4
    The Long Life – Helen Small
    Philosophical Quarterly 59 (236): 568-570. 2009.
  • Peregrine Horden , Freud and the Humanities (review)
    Radical Philosophy 44 37. 1986.
  •  1
    Introduction
    with David
    In David Archard & David Benatar (eds.), Procreation and Parenthood: The Ethics of Bearing and Rearing Children, Oxford University Press. 2010.
  •  53
    Should We Teach Patriotism?/David Archard
    Studies in Philosophy and Education.–Ny. 1999.
    This article examines a particular debate between Eamonn Callan and William Galston concerning the need for a civic education which counters the divisive pull of pluralism by uniting the citizenry in patriotic allegiance to a single national identity. The article offers a preliminary understanding of nationalism and patriotism before setting out the terms of the debate. It then critically evaluates the central idea of Callan that one might be under an obligation morally to improve one''s own pat…Read more
  •  58
    British Communitarianism (review)
    Res Publica 6 (2): 227-235. 2000.
  • Sartre is Dead
    Radical Philosophy 25 1. 1980.
  •  195
    Informed consent: Autonomy and self-ownership
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (1). 2008.
    Using the example of an unconsented mouth swab I criticise the view that an action of this kind taken in itself is wrongful in respect of its being a violation of autonomy. This is so much inasmuch as autonomy merits respect only with regard to ‘critical life choices’. I consider the view that such an action is nevertheless harmful or risks serious harm. I also respond to two possible suggestions: that the action is of a kind that violates autonomy; and, that the class of such actions violates a…Read more
  •  62
    Moral Partiality
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 20 (1): 129-141. 1995.
  •  75
    Assisted Dying and Legal Change – Penney Lewis
    Philosophical Quarterly 61 (242): 215-216. 2011.
  •  2
    Negligent Rape
    Australian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics 1 (2). 1999.
  •  20
    How Should We Teach Sex?
    Journal of Philosophy of Education 32 (3): 437-450. 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
  • Review Symposium: Hiding from Humanity by Martha Nussbaum
    with William Charlton, John Haldane, Thom Brooks, and Martha C. Nussbaum
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (4): 291-349. 2008.
  •  266
    Children's rights
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    Children are young human beings. Some children are very young human beings. As human beings children evidently have a certain moral status. There are things that should not be done to them for the simple reason that they are human. At the same time children are different from adult human beings and it seems reasonable to think that there are things children may not do that adults are permitted to do. In the majority of jurisdictions, for instance, children are not allowed to vote, to marry, to b…Read more
  •  294
    Professional philosophers are members of bioethical committees and regulatory bodies in areas of interest to bioethicists. This suggests they possess moral expertise even if they do not exercise it directly and without constraint. Moral expertise is defined, and four arguments given in support of scepticism about their possession of such expertise are considered and rejected: the existence of extreme disagreement between moral philosophers about moral matters; the lack of a means clearly to iden…Read more
  • The Family in the Age of Biotechnology (review)
    Radical Philosophy 77. 1996.
  •  60
    Political Reasonability
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (1). 2005.
    According to Stephen Macedo, ‘[liberal], democratic politics is not only about individual rights and limited government, it is also about justification … political justification … understood politically.’ ‘Political justification,’ he asserts, ‘is a core liberal goal.’ Gerald Gaus, similarly, writes that the ‘idea of public justification is at the heart of a contractual liberalism.’ Very many other contemporary political philosophers believe that the politics of a liberal polity must be justifia…Read more