-
8Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 4 (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2018.This is the fourth volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The series aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in the vibrant field of political philosophy and its closely related subfields, including jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory.
-
62Reply to RobertsonPhilosophical Papers 32 (2): 185-191. 2003.Philosophical Papers Vol.32(2) 2003: 185-191
-
67Sumner on WelfareDialogue 37 (3): 571-. 1998.In this paper I criticize the way Sumner marks the subjective/objective divide and the way he argues for subjective views of well-being.
-
657Self-Ownership and the Conflation ProblemIn Mark Timmons (ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, . forthcoming.Libertarian self-ownership views in the tradition of Locke, Nozick, and the left-libertarians have supposed that we enjoy very powerful deontological protections against infringing upon our property. Such a conception makes sense when we are focused on property that is very important to its owner, such as a person’s kidney. However, this stringency of our property rights is harder to credit when we consider more trivial infringements such as very mildly toxic pollution or trivial risks such havi…Read more
-
97Parfit's Case Against SubjectivismIn Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 6: Volume 6, Oxford University Press. 2011.I argue that Parfit's On What Matters does not make a compelling case against subjective accounts of reasons for action.
-
136
-
Well-Being and ConsequentialismDissertation, University of Michigan. 1997.There are two common assumptions about well-being that I am especially concerned to dispute in this dissertation. The first assumption is that differences in kinds of prudential values can be reduced to differences in amount of prudential value. That is, that differences in the qualities of values can reliably be reduced to mere differences in quantity. The second assumption is that well-being is the appropriate object of moral concern. Consequentialist moral theories typically argue that morali…Read more
-
65Michael J. Zimmerman, The Concept of Moral Obligation:The Concept of Moral ObligationEthics 109 (2): 468-470. 1999.
-
811Subjectivism and blameCanadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (5). 2007.My favorite thing about this paper is that I think I usefully explicate and then mess with Bernard Williams's attempt to explain how his internalism is compatible with our ordinary practices of blame. There are a surprising number of things wrong with Williams's position. Of course that leaves my own favored subjectivism in a pickle, but still...
-
44From Valuing to Value: A Defense of SubjectivismOxford University Press. 2016.David Sobel defends subjectivism about well-being and reasons for action: the idea that normativity flows from what an agent cares about, that something is valuable because it is valued. In these essays Sobel explores the tensions between subjective views of reasons and morality, and concludes that they do not undermine subjectivism.
-
1173Well-Being as the Object of Moral ConsiderationEconomics and Philosophy 14 (2): 249. 1998.The proposal I offer attempts to remedy the inadequacies of exclusive focus on well-being for moral purposes. The proposal is this: We should allow the agent to decide for herself where she wants to throw the weight that is her due in moral reflection, with the proviso that she understands the way that her weight will be aggregated with others in reaching a moral outcome. I will call this the "autonomy principle." The autonomy principle, I claim, provides the consequentialist's best prospect for…Read more
-
821The impotence of the demandingness objectionPhilosophers' Imprint 7 1-17. 2007.Consequentialism, many philosophers have claimed, asks too much of us to be a plausible ethical theory. Indeed, the theory's severe demandingness is often claimed to be its chief flaw. My thesis is that as we come to better understand this objection, we see that, even if it signals or tracks the existence of a real problem for Consequentialism, it cannot itself be a fundamental problem with the view. The objection cannot itself provide good reason to break with Consequentialism, because it must …Read more
-
536Morality and virtue: An assessment of some recent work in virtue ethicsEthics 114 (3): 514-554. 2004.This essay focuses on three recent books on morality and virtue, Michael Slote's 'Morals from Motives', Rosalind Hursthouse's 'On Virtue Ethics', and Philippa Foot's 'Natural Goodness'. Slote proposes an "agent-based" ethical theory according to which the ethical status of acts is derivative from assessments of virtue. Following Foot's lead, Hursthouse aims to vindicate an ethical naturalism that explains human goodness on the basis of views about human nature. Both Hursthouse and Slote take vir…Read more
-
53Morality, Normativity, and Society, David Copp. Oxford University Press, 1995, xii + 262 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 14 (2): 349. 1998.
-
621Pain for objectivists: The case of matters of mere tasteEthical Theory and Moral Practice 8 (4). 2005.Can we adequately account for our reasons of mere taste without holding that our desires ground such reasons? Recently, Scanlon and Parfit have argued that we can, pointing to pleasure and pain as the grounds of such reasons. In this paper I take issue with each of their accounts. I conclude that we do not yet have a plausible rival to a desire-based understanding of the grounds of such reasons.
-
1IntroductionIn David Sobel & Steven Wall (eds.), Reasons for Action, Cambridge University Press. 2009.
-
494Advice for Non-analytical NaturalistsIn Martina Herrmann (ed.), Reading Parfit, Springer Netherlands. pp. 153-171. 1998.We argue that Parfit's "Triviality Objection" against some naturalistic views of normativity is not compelling. We think that once one accepts, as one should, that identity statements can be informative in virtue of their pragmatics and not only in virtue of their semantics, Parfit's case against naturalism can be overcome.
Syracuse, New York, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |