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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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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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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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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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76Précis: Commonsense ConsequentialismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 88 (1): 209-216. 2014.A summary of my book: Commonsense Consequentialism.
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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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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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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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