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307Why moral philosophers are not and should not be moral expertsBioethics 25 (3): 119-127. 2011.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
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67Applying Philosophy: A Response to O’NeillJournal of Applied Philosophy 26 (3): 238-244. 2009.abstract I consider the putative originality of applied philosophy and seek to defend a version of it often called 'bottom up'. I review ways in which imagined cases may cause us to reconsider our normative commitments, and endorse a general attentiveness to the matter of how the world is and how it might reasonably be imagined. This is important if practical philosophers want to form the correct normative judgements, to be able to recognize the sui generis character of some moral theorising in …Read more
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David Copp, Jean Hampton and John E. Roemer (eds), The Idea of DemocracyRadical Philosophy. forthcoming.
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Sebastian Gardner, Irrationality and the Philosophy of PsychoanalysisRadical Philosophy. forthcoming.
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194. informed consent and the grounds of autonomyIn Thomas Nys, Yvonne Denier & Toon Vandevelde (eds.), Autonomy & paternalism: reflections on the theory and practice of health care, Peeters. pp. 5--113. 2007.
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35Nationalism and PatriotismIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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Child Protection: An Holistic ViewAustralian Journal of Professional and Applied Ethics 7 (2). 2005.
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193The moral and political status of childrenPhilosophical Quarterly 54 (216): 490-492. 2004.The book contains original essays by distinguished moral and political philosophers on the topic of the moral and political status of children. It covers the themes of children's rights, parental rights and duties, the family and justice, and civic education
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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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96How 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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10Pathologien des Sozialen: die Aufgaben der Sozialphilosophie (edited book)Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag. 1994.
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97Moral 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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50Political philosophy and the concept of the nationJournal of Value Inquiry 29 (3): 379-392. 1995.
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82For our own goodAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 72 (3). 1994.This Article does not have an abstract
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201Child Abuse: parental rights and the interests of the childJournal of Applied Philosophy 7 (2): 183-194. 1990.I criticise the ‘liberal’view of the proper relationship between the family and State, namely that, although the interests of the child should be paramount, parents are entitled to rights of both privacy and autonomy which should be abrogated only when the child suffers a specifiable harm. I argue that the right to bear children is not absolute, and that it only grounds a right to rear upon an objectionable proprietarian picture of the child as owned by its producer. If natural parents have any …Read more
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Liberty Liberating Cyberspace: Civil Liberties, Human Rights & The Internet (review)Ends and Means 3 (1). 1998.
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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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Queen's University, BelfastSchool of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and PoliticsRetired faculty