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58Review of J. David Velleman, Self to Self: Selected Essays (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (8). 2007.
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407Acting and SatisficingIn George Pavlakos & Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco (eds.), Reasons and Intentions in Law and Practical Agency, Cambridge University Press. pp. 31-51. 2015.
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603Direction of Fit and Motivational CognitivismIn Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 235-64. 2006.The idea of direction of fit has been found appealing by many philosophers. Anscombe’s famous examples have persuaded many of us that there must be some deep difference between belief and desire that is captured by the metaphor of direction of fit. Most of the aim of the paper is to try to get clear on which intuitions Anscombe’s example taps into. My view is that there is more than one intuition in play here, and I will try to show that various distinctions and points are confused in the litera…Read more
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317The Conclusion of Practical ReasonPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 94 323-343. 2007.
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900Minimalism about Intention: A Modest DefenseInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 57 (3): 384-411. 2014.Inquiry, Volume 57, Issue 3, Page 384-411, June 2014
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118Quasi-realism's problem of autonomous effectsPhilosophical Quarterly 53 (212). 2003.Simon Blackburn defends a 'quasi-realist' view intended to preserve much of what realists want to say about moral discourse. According to error theory, moral discourse is committed to indefensible metaphysical assumptions. Quasi-realism seems to preserve ontological frugality, attributing no mistaken commitments to our moral practices. In order to make good this claim, quasi-realism must show that (a) the seemingly realist features of the 'surface grammar' of moral discourse can be made compatib…Read more
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9IntroductionPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 94 (1): 9-13. 2007.
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656The Vice of ProcrastinationIn Chrisoula Andreou & Mark White (eds.), The Thief of Time, Oxford University Press. 2010.The aim of this chapter is to understand more precisely what kind of irrationality involved in procrastination. The chapter argues that in order to understand the irrationality of procrastination one needs to understand the possibility and the nature of what I call “top-down independent” policies and long-term actions. A policy or long-term action) is top-down independent if it is possible to act irrationally relative to the adoption of the policy without ever engaging in a momentary action that…Read more
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99Realists without a Cause: Deflationary Theories of Truth and Ethical RealismCanadian Journal of Philosophy 26 (4). 1996.In ‘The Status of Content,’ Paul Boghossian points out an embarrassment in which A.J. Ayer finds himself in his extensive irrealism. Ayer embraces both an emotivist theory of ethics and a deflationary theory of truth. According to an emotivist theory, sentences that look like perfectly good declarative sentences, such as ‘One ought not to kill,’ should be interpreted as non-declarative sentences. According to a deflationary theory of truth, ‘truth’ is not a predicate of sentences, and sentences …Read more
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145Brute Requirements: Critical Notice (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (1): 153-173. 2007.
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6Moral PsychologyRodopi. 2007.In recent decades the central questions of moral psychology have attracted renewed interest. Contemporary work on moral motivation and the rationality of moral action has broadened its focus to include a wide array of related issues. New interpretations of historical figures have also contributed to conceptual advances in moral psychology, in a way unparalleled in any other area of philosophy. This volume presents original work from some of the most prominent philosophers currently working on mo…Read more
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1181Externalism, Motivation, and Moral KnowledgeIn Susana Nuccetelli & Gary Seay (eds.), Ethical Naturalism: Current Debates, Cambridge University Press. 2011.For non-analytic ethical naturalists, externalism about moral motivation is an attractive option: it allows naturalists to embrace a Humean theory of motivation while holding that moral properties are real, natural properties. However, Michael Smith has mounted an important objection to this view. Smith observes that virtuous agents must have non-derivative motivation to pursue specific ends that they believe to be morally right; he then argues that this externalist view ascribes to the virtuous…Read more
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121Hegel’s Critique of Kant in the Philosophy of RightKant Studien 86 (2): 211-230. 1995.There is general agreement among commentators that in the "Philosophy of Right" Hegel misunderstands important aspects of Kant's practical philosophy. It is often claimed that Hegel entirely misses the point of Kant's universal law test and the mode of its application. We argue that these charges rest on misreadings of the "Philosophy of Right" in which Hegel's conception of the will is not taken into account. We show that Hegel's critique of Kant can be defended if it is interpreted as arising …Read more
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460The judgment of a weak willPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 59 (4): 875-911. 1999.In trying to explain the possibility of akrasia , it seems plausible to deny that there is a conceptual connection between motivation and evaluation ; akrasia occurs when the agent is motivated to do something that she does not judge to be good . However, it is hard to see how such accounts could respect our intuition that the akratic agent acts freely, or that there is a difference between akrasia and compulsion. It is also hard to see how such accounts could be extended to the realm of theoret…Read more
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1226Moral Faith and Moral ReasonIn Sophie-Grace Chappell (ed.), Intuition, Theory, Anti-Theory in Ethics, . pp. 76-103. 2015.Robert Adams argues that often our moral commitment outstrips what we are epistemically entitled to believe; in these cases, the virtuous agent doxastic states are instances of “moral faith”. I argue against Adams’ views on the need for moral faith; at least in some cases, our moral “intuitions” provide us with certain moral knowledge. The appearance that there can be no certainty here is the result of dubious views about second-order or indirect doubts. Nonetheless, discussing the phenomena …Read more
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81Representing collective agencyPhilosophical Studies 172 (12): 3379-3386. 2015.This paper examines whether Bratman’s succeeds in provides a reductive account of collective intention
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1628Action, Deontology, and Risk: Against the Multiplicative ModelEthics 127 (3): 674-707. 2017.Deontological theories face difficulties in accounting for situations involving risk; the most natural ways of extending deontological principles to such situations have unpalatable consequences. In extending ethical principles to decision under risk, theorists often assume the risk must be incorporated into the theory by means of a function from the product of probability assignments to certain values. Deontologists should reject this assumption; essentially different actions are available to t…Read more
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53In Defense of “Appearances”Dialogue 48 (2): 411. 2009.Reply to critics on panel on "Appearances of the Good"
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96Appearances of the Good: An Essay on the Nature of Practical ReasonCambridge University Press. 2007.'We desire all and only those things we conceive to be good; we avoid what we conceive to be bad.' This slogan was once the standard view of the relationship between desire or motivation and rational evaluation. Many critics have rejected this scholastic formula as either trivial or wrong. It appears to be trivial if we just define the good as 'what we want', and wrong if we consider apparent conflicts between what we seem to want and what we seem to think is good. In Appearances of the Good, Se…Read more
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2462Vague Projects and the Puzzle of the Self-TorturerEthics 123 (1): 86-112. 2012.In this paper we advance a new solution to Quinn’s puzzle of the self-torturer. The solution falls directly out of an application of the principle of instrumental reasoning to what we call “vague projects”, i.e., projects whose completion does not occur at any particular or definite point or moment. The resulting treatment of the puzzle extends our understanding of instrumental rationality to projects and ends that cannot be accommodated by orthodox theories of rational choice.
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32Speculative Mistakes and Ordinary Temptations: Kant on Instrumentalist Conceptions of Practical ReasonHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 20 (2): 203-223. 2003.
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2170Friendship and the Law of Reason: Baier and Kant on Love and PrinciplesIn C. J. Williams Jenkins (ed.), Persons, Promises, and Practices, University of Notre Dame Press. pp. 250-280. 2005.
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The Object of Reason: An Inquiry Into the Possibility of Practical ReasonDissertation, University of Pittsburgh. 1996.Subjectivism is the mainstream view of practical reason. According to subjectivism, what has value for an agent must ultimately be grounded in what the agent actually desires. Subjectivism is motivated by a conservative view of the scope and extent of practical reason. Against this view, my dissertation argues that any coherent conception of an end must endow practical reason with a scope that goes beyond anything that subjectivism could accommodate. ;Subjectivism correctly grasps that nothing c…Read more
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