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455The performance of one option can entail the performance of another. For instance, I have the option of baking a pumpkin pie as well as the option of baking a pie, and the former entails the latter. Now, suppose that I have both reason to bake a pie and reason to bake a pumpkin pie. This raises the question: Which, if either, is more fundamental than the other? Do I have reason to bake a pie because I have reason to perform some instance of pie-baking—perhaps, pumpkin-pie baking? Or do I have re…Read more
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214Position‐relative consequentialism, agent‐centered options, and supererogationEthics 113 (2): 303-332. 2003.In this paper, I argue that maximizing act-consequentialism (MAC)—the theory that holds that agents ought always to act so as to produce the best available state of affairs—can accommodate both agent-centered options and supererogatory acts. Thus I will show that MAC can accommodate the view that agents often have the moral option of either pursuing their own personal interests or sacrificing those interests for the sake of the impersonal good. And I will show that MAC can accommodate the idea t…Read more
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461Following Shelly Kagan’s useful terminology, foundational consequentialists are those who hold that the ranking of outcomes is at the foundation of all moral assessment. That is, they hold that moral assessments of right and wrong, virtuous and vicious, morally good and morally bad, etc. are all ultimately a function of how outcomes rank. But foundational consequentialists disagree on what is to be directly evaluated in terms of the ranking of outcomes, which is to say that they disagree on what…Read more
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97Commonsense morality and not being required to maximize the overall goodPhilosophical Studies 100 (2): 193-213. 2000.On commonsense morality, there are two types of situations where an agent is not required to maximize the impersonal good. First, there are those situations where the agent is prohibited from doing so--constraints. Second, there are those situations where the agent is permitted to do so but also has the option of doing something else--options. I argue that there are three possible explanations for the absence of a moral requirement to maximize the impersonal good and that the commonsense moralis…Read more
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436ConsequentializingPhilosophy Compass 4 (2): 329-347. 2009.A growing trend of thought has it that any plausible nonconsequentialist theory can be consequentialized, which is to say that it can be given a consequentialist representation. In this essay, I explore both whether this claim is true and what its implications are. I also explain the procedure for consequentializing a nonconsequentialist theory and give an account of the motivation for doing so.
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81Zimmerman, Michael J.. Ignorance and Moral Obligation.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014. Pp. ix+149. $55.00Ethics 125 (4): 1236-1241. 2015.Review of Michael J. Zimmerman's Ignorance and Moral Obligation.
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241Teleological ReasonsIn Daniel Star (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, Oxford University Press. 2018.I explain what teleological reasons are, distinguish between direct and indirect teleological reasons, and discuss both whether all practical reasons are teleological and whether all teleological reasons are direct.
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65Review: Michael J. Zimmerman, Ignorance and Moral Obligation (review)Ethics 125 (4): 1236-1241. 2015.Review of Michael J. Zimmerman's Ignorance and Moral Obligation.
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595Imagine both that (1) S1 is deliberating at t about whether or not to x at t' and that (2) although S1’s x-ing at t' would not itself have good consequences, good consequences would ensue if both S1 x's at t' and S2 y's at t", where S1 may or may not be identical to S2 and where t < t' ≤ t". In this paper, I consider how consequentialists should treat S2 and the possibility that S2 will y at t". At one end of the spectrum, consequentialists would hold that, in deciding whether or not to x at t',…Read more
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248In this paper, I present an argument that poses the following dilemma for moral theorists: either (a) reject at least one of three of our most firmly held moral convictions or (b) reject the view that moral reasons are morally overriding, that is, reject the view that moral reasons override non-moral reasons such that even the weakest moral reason defeats the strongest non-moral reason in determining an act’s moral status (e.g., morally permissible). I then argue that we should opt for the secon…Read more
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172Dual-ranking act-consequentialismPhilosophical Studies 138 (3). 2008.Dual-ranking act-consequentialism (DRAC) is a rather peculiar version of act-consequentialism. Unlike more traditional forms of act-consequentialism, DRAC doesn’t take the deontic status of an action to be a function of some evaluative ranking of outcomes. Rather, it takes the deontic status of an action to be a function of some non-evaluative ranking that is in turn a function of two auxiliary rankings that are evaluative. I argue that DRAC is promising in that it can accommodate certain featur…Read more
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182Can consequentialism be reconciled with our common-sense moral intuitions?Philosophical Studies 91 (1): 1-19. 1998.Consequentialism is usually thought to be unable to accommodate many of our commonsense moral intuitions. In particular, it has seemed incompatible with the intuition that agents should not violate someone's rights even in order to prevent numerous others from committing comparable rights violations. Nevertheless, I argue that a certain form of consequentialism can accommodate this intuition: agent-relative consequentialism--the view according to which agents ought always to bring about what is,…Read more
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304Are Moral Reasons Morally Overriding?Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (4): 369-388. 2008.In this paper, I argue that those moral theorists who wish to accommodate agent-centered options and supererogatory acts must accept both that the reason an agent has to promote her own interests is a nonmoral reason and that this nonmoral reason can prevent the moral reason she has to sacrifice those interests for the sake of doing more to promote the interests of others from generating a moral requirement to do so. These theorists must, then, deny that moral reasons morally override nonmoral r…Read more
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70The Limits of Kindness, by Caspar HareMind 124 (496): 1285-1288. 2015.A review of Caspar Hare's book The Limit of Kindness
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457The performance of one option can entail the performance of another. For instance, I have the option of baking a pumpkin pie as well as the option of baking a pie, and the former entails the latter. Now, suppose that both of these options are permissible. This raises the issue of which, if either, is more fundamental than the other. Is baking a pie permissible because it’s permissible to perform some instance of pie-baking, such as pumpkin-pie baking? Or is baking a pumpkin pie permissible becau…Read more
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76Précis: Commonsense ConsequentialismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (1): 209-216. 2014.A summary of my book: Commonsense Consequentialism.
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87Facing death: Epicurus and his critics (review)Journal of Value Inquiry 39 (3-4): 521-526. 2005.This is a book review of James Warren's book "Facing Death: Epicurus and His Critics."
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350Consequentializing moral theoriesPacific Philosophical Quarterly 88 (1). 2007.To consequentialize a non-consequentialist theory, take whatever considerations that the non-consequentialist theory holds to be relevant to determining the deontic statuses of actions and insist that those considerations are relevant to determining the proper ranking of outcomes. In this way, the consequentialist can produce an ordering of outcomes that when combined with her criterion of rightness yields the same set of deontic verdicts that the non-consequentialist theory yields. In this pape…Read more
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3427 ConsequentialismIn Christian Miller (ed.), Continuum Companion to Ethics, Continuum. pp. 143. 2011.A general introduction to consequentialism.
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274Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets RationalityOxford University Press USA. 2011.Commonsense Consequentialism is a book about morality, rationality, and the interconnections between the two. In it, Douglas W. Portmore defends a version of consequentialism that both comports with our commonsense moral intuitions and shares with other consequentialist theories the same compelling teleological conception of practical reasons. Broadly construed, consequentialism is the view that an act's deontic status is determined by how its outcome ranks relative to those of the available alt…Read more
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218Uncertainty, Indeterminacy, and Agent-Centred ConstraintsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 95 (2): 284-298. 2017.Common-sense morality includes various agent-centred constraints, including ones against killing unnecessarily and breaking a promise. However, it's not always clear whether, had an agent ϕ-ed, she would have violated a constraint. And sometimes the reason for this is not that we lack knowledge of the relevant facts, but that there is no fact about whether her ϕ-ing would have constituted a constraint-violation. What, then, is a constraint-accepting theory to say about whether it would have been…Read more
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402Review of Martin Peterson's The Dimensions of Consequentialism (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy. forthcoming.
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401Maximalism is the view that if an agent is permitted to perform a certain type of action (say, baking), this is in virtue of the fact that she is permitted to perform some instance of this type (say, baking a pie), where φ-ing is an instance of ψ-ing if and only if φ-ing entails ψ-ing but not vice versa. Now, the point of this paper is not to defend maximalism, but to defend a certain account of our options that when combined with maximalism results in a theory that both avoids the sorts of obje…Read more
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44Maximalism versus omnism about reasonsPhilosophical Studies 174 (12): 2953-2972. 2017.The performance of one option can entail the performance of another. For instance, I have the option of baking a pie as well as the option of baking, and baking a pie entails baking. Now, suppose that I have both reason to bake and reason to bake a pie. Which, if either, grounds the other? Do I have reason to bake in virtue of my having reason to perform some instance of baking, such as pie baking? Or do I have reason to bake a pie in virtue of my having reason to bake? Or does neither ground th…Read more
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309Desire fulfillment and posthumous harmAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 44 (1). 2007.This paper argues that the standard account of posthumous harm is untenable. The standard account presupposes the desire-fulfillment theory of welfare, but I argue that no plausible version of this theory can allow for the possibility of posthumous harm. I argue that there are, at least, two problems with the standard account from the perspective of a desire-fulfillment theorist. First, as most desire-fulfillment theorists acknowledge, the theory must be restricted in such a way that only those …Read more
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222This is Chapter 4 of my Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality. In this chapter, I argue that that any plausible nonconsequentialist theory can be consequentialized, which is to say that, for any plausible nonconsequentialist theory, we can construct a consequentialist theory that yields the exact same set of deontic verdicts that it yields.
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275Agent-Relative vs. Agent-NeutralIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Wiley. 2022.This is a general introduction to the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction.
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110The point of having you write a philosophy paper is for you to develop and practice certain important fundamental skills. They include the following: (1) the ability to comprehend, reconstruct, and analyze complex philosophical arguments; (2) the ability to critically evaluate such arguments; (3) the ability to argue persuasively for your own views; and (4) the ability to articulate your thoughts in a clear, concise, and wellorganized manner.
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658Precis of Commonsense Consequentialism and Replies to Gert, Hurley, and TenenbaumPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research. forthcoming.For a symposium on Douglas W. Portmore's Commonsense Consequentialism: Wherein Morality Meets Rationality
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951Parfit on Reasons and Rule ConsequentialismIn Simon Kirchin (ed.), Reading Parfit, Routledge. forthcoming.I argue that rule consequentialism sometimes requires us to act in ways that we lack sufficient reason to act. And this presents a dilemma for Parfit. Either Parfit should concede that we should reject rule consequentialism (and, hence, Triple Theory, which implies it) despite the putatively strong reasons that he believes we have for accepting the view or he should deny that morality has the importance he attributes to it. For if morality is such that we sometimes have decisive reason to act wr…Read more
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Arizona State UniversityPhilosophy - School of Historical, Philosophical, and Religious StudiesProfessor
APA Western Division
Tempe, Arizona, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
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