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22The English language and philosophyRue Descartes 26 73-80. 1999.Dans quelle mesure la philosophie du langage ordinaire, faite par des anglophones qui réfléchissent sur la langue et son usage correct, est-elle liée à l'anglais ? Ainsi, quand elle traite de la nature de la connaissance, se peut-il qu'il s'agisse de questions induites par le terme knowledge ? Adrian Moore instruit la cohérence d'une réponse négative à partir d'une réflexion sur le « nous » qui parle. Mais il voit dans l'impossibilité de principe pour la philosophie du langage ordinaire de denie…Read more
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168Quasi‐realism and Relativism (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (1). 2002.1. If it is true that ‘an ethic is the propositional reflection of the dispositions and attitudes, policies and stances, of people,’ as Simon Blackburn says in summary of the quasi-realism that he champions in this excellent and wonderfully provocative book, then it seems to follow that different dispositions, attitudes, policies and stances—different conative states, for short—will issue in different ethics, each with an equal claim to truth; and this in turn seems to be one thing that could be…Read more
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4QuineIn Christopher Belshaw & Gary Kemp (eds.), 12 Modern Philosophers, Wiley-blackwell. 2009.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Carnap's Logical Positivism Quine's Naturalism The External/Internal Distinction and the Analytic/Synthetic Distinction The Indeterminacy of Translation Quine's Conception of Philosophy I: Metaphysics Quine's Conception of Philosophy II: Ontology Quine's Influence References.
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48Points of ViewClarendon Press. 1997.A. W. Moore argues in this bold and unusual book that it is possible to think about the world from no point of view. His argument involves discussion of a very wide range of fundamental philosophical issues, including the nature of persons, the subject-matter of mathematics, realism and anti-realism, value, the inexpressible, and God. The result is a powerful critique of our own finitude. 'imaginative, original, and ambitious' Robert Brandom, Times Literary Supplement.
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17Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline (edited book)Princeton University Press. 2006.What can--and what can't--philosophy do? What are its ethical risks--and its possible rewards? How does it differ from science? In Philosophy as a Humanistic Discipline, Bernard Williams addresses these questions and presents a striking vision of philosophy as fundamentally different from science in its aims and methods even though there is still in philosophy "something that counts as getting it right." Written with his distinctive combination of rigor, imagination, depth, and humanism, the boo…Read more
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43In this bold and innovative new work, A.W. Moore poses the question of whether it is possible for ethical thinking to be grounded in pure reason. In order to understand and answer this question, he takes a refreshing and challenging look at Kant’s moral and religious philosophy. Identifying three Kantian Themes – morality, freedom and religion – and presenting variations on each of these themes in turn, Moore concedes that there are difficulties with the Kantian view that morality can be governe…Read more
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2Misplaced celebrations? Reply to Mark Sacks' critical notice of'Points of View'International Journal of Philosophical Studies 7 (3): 387-392. 1999.
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88More on 'The Philosophical Significance of Gödel's Theorem'Grazer Philosophische Studien 55 (1): 103-126. 1998.In Michael Dummett's celebrated essay on Gödel's theorem he considers the threat posed by the theorem to the idea that meaning is use and argues that this threat can be annulled. In my essay I try to show that the threat is even less serious than Dummett makes it out to be. Dummett argues, in effect, that Gödel's theorem does not prevent us from "capturing" the truths of arithmetic; I argue that the idea that meaning is use does not require that we be able to "capture" these truths anyway. Towar…Read more
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74Kantian humility: Our ignorance of things in themselvesPhilosophical Review 110 (1): 117-120. 2001.Kant once wrote, “Many historians of philosophy... let the philosophers speak mere nonsense.... They cannot see beyond what the philosophers actually said to what they really meant to say.’ Rae Langton begins her book with this quotation. She concludes it, after a final pithy summary of the position that she attributes to Kant, with the comment, “That, it seems to me, is what Kant said, and meant to say”. In between are some two hundred pages of admirably clear, tightly argued exegesis, suppleme…Read more
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79Kantian Humility: Our Ignorance of Things in ThemselvesPhilosophical Review 110 (1): 117. 2001.Kant once wrote, “Many historians of philosophy... let the philosophers speak mere nonsense.... They cannot see beyond what the philosophers actually said to what they really meant to say.’ Rae Langton begins her book with this quotation. She concludes it, after a final pithy summary of the position that she attributes to Kant, with the comment, “That, it seems to me, is what Kant said, and meant to say”. In between are some two hundred pages of admirably clear, tightly argued exegesis, suppleme…Read more
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24Kant and the Problem of God. By Gordon E. M. MichalsonJr.. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. Pp.xi, 196. £50, $66.95 , $28.95 . ISBN 0-631-21219-1 , ISBN 0-631-21220-5 (review)Kantian Review 4 155-158. 2000.
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52Kant and the historical turn: Philosophy as critical interpretation - by Karl AmeriksPhilosophical Books 49 (2): 149-150. 2008.
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82Immanuel Kant’s Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics that Will Be Able to Come Forward as ScienceTopoi 33 (1): 277-283. 2014.It is only two years since Immanuel Kant published his monumental Critique of Pure Reason.As part of entering into the spirit of this ‘untimely review’, I shall pretend that only the first edition of the Critique exists. This has a bearing on some claims that I shall make about differences between the content of the Prolegomena and that of the Critique. Despite its formidable difficulty, that book has already generated intense interest in the philosophical community. Those who are still struggli…Read more
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315Ineffability and religionEuropean Journal of Philosophy 11 (2). 2003.It is argued that, although there are no ineffable truths, the concept of ineffability nevertheless does have application—to certain states of knowledge. Towards the end of the essay this idea is related to religion: it is argued that the language that results from attempting (unsuccessfully) to put ineffable knowledge into words is very often of a religious kind. An example of this is given at the very end of the essay. This example concerns the Euthyphro question: whether what is right is righ…Read more
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1Hacker, PMS-Wittgenstein's Place in Twentieth-Century Analytic PhilosophyPhilosophical Books 38 242-244. 1997.
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42Review of P. Mancosu, ed., From Brouwer to Hilbert: The Debate on the Foundations of Mathematics in the 1920s (review)Philosophia Mathematica 7 (1): 126-128. 1999.
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143Reason, freedom and Kant: An exchangeKantian Review 12 (1): 113-133. 2007.According to Kant, being purely rational or purely reasonable and being autonomously free are one and the same thing. But how can this be so? How can my innate capacity for pure reason ever motivate me to do anything, whether the right thing or the wrong thing? What I will suggest is that the fundamental connection between reason and freedom, both for Kant and in reality, is precisely our human biological life and spontaneity of the will, a conjunctive intrinsic structural property of our animal…Read more
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275Bird on Kant's Mathematical AntinomiesKantian Review 16 (2): 235-243. 2011.This essay is concerned with Graham Bird’s treatment, in The Revolutionary Kant, of Kant’s mathematical antinomies. On Bird’s interpretation, our error in these antinomies is to think that we can settle certain issues about the limits of physical reality by pure reason whereas in fact we cannot settle them at all. On the rival interpretation advocated in this essay, it is not true that we cannot settle these issues. Our error is to presuppose that the concept of the unconditioned has application…Read more
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119Maxims and thick ethical conceptsRatio 19 (2). 2006.I begin with Kant's notion of a maxim and consider the role which this notion plays in Kant's formulations of the fundamental categorical imperative. This raises the question of what a maxim is, and why there is not the same requirement for resolutions of other kinds to be universalizable. Drawing on Bernard Williams' notion of a thick ethical concept, I proffer an answer to this question which is intended neither in a spirit of simple exegesis nor as a straightforward exercise in moral philosop…Read more
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46Privacy, Interests, and Inalienable RightsMoral Philosophy and Politics 5 (2): 327-355. 2018.Some rights are so important for human autonomy and well-being that many scholars insist they should not be waived, traded, or abandoned. Privacy is a recent addition to this list. At the other end of the spectrum is the belief that privacy is a mere unimportant interest or preference. This paper defends a middle path between viewing privacy as an inalienable, non-waivable, non-transferrable right and the view of privacy as a mere subjective interest. First, an account of privacy is offered that…Read more
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41Privacy in the FamilyIn Beate Roessler & Dorota Mokrosinska (eds.), The Social Dimensions of Privacy, Cambridge University Press. pp. 104-121. 2015.While the balance between individual privacy and government monitoring or corporate surveillance has been a frequent topic across numerous disciplines, the issue of privacy within the family has been largely ignored in recent privacy debates. Yet privacy intrusions between parents and children or between adult partners or spouses can be just as profound as those found in the more “public spheres” of life. Popular access to increasingly sophisticated forms of electronic surveillance technologies …Read more
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3Intellectual Property and the Prisoner's Dilemma: A Game Theory Justification of Copyrights, Patents, and Trade SecretsFordham Intellectual Property, Media and Entertainment Law Journal 28. 2018.Setting aside various foundational moral entanglements, I will offer an argument for the protection of intellectual property based on individual self-interest and prudence. In large part, this argument will parallel considerations that arise in a prisoner’s dilemma game. After sketching the salient features of a prisoner’s dilemma, I will briefly examine the nature of intellectual property and how one can view content creation, exclusion, and access as a prisoner’s dilemma. In brief, allowing co…Read more
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29Intellectual Property: Moral, Legal, and International Dilemmas (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1997.As the expansion of the Internet and the digital formatting of all kinds of creative works move us further into the information age, intellectual property issues have become paramount. Computer programs costing thousands of research dollars are now copied in an instant. People who would recoil at the thought of stealing cars, computers, or VCRs regularly steal software or copy their favorite music from a friend's CD. Since the Web has no national boundaries, these issues are international concer…Read more
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Applied Ethics |
Business Ethics |
Technology Ethics |
Social Ethics |
Political Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
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