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96Imagining ReasonsSouthern Journal of Philosophy 49 (s1): 181-192. 2011.In this article, I explore the implications of Karsten Stueber's account of imaginative resistance, particularly as it relates to the phenomenon of moral dumbfounding described by Jonathan Haidt and colleagues. I suggest that Stueber's account allows us to redescribe the phenomenon as a failure of the folk psychological project of interpretation and so to challenge Haidt's metaethical conclusions. I close by considering some implications for moral deliberation and judgment in those, such as auti…Read more
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127Agency and responsibility: a common-sense moral psychologyOxford University Press. 2001.Is it ever possible for people to act freely and intentionally against their better judgement? Is it ever possible to act in opposition to one's strongest desire? If either of these questions are answered in the negative, the common-sense distinctions between recklessness, weakness of will and compulsion collapse. This would threaten our ordinary notion of self-control and undermine our practice of holding each other responsible for moral failure. So a clear and plausible account of how weakness…Read more
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10What's the Buzz? Undercover Marketing and the Corruption of Friendship1Journal of Applied Philosophy 25 (1): 2-18. 2008.abstract Undercover marketing targets potential customers by concealing the commercial nature of an apparently social transaction. In a typical case an individual approaches a marketing target apparently to provide some information or advice about a product in a way that makes it seem like they are a fellow consumer. In another kind of case, a friend displays a product to you, and encourages its purchase, but fails to disclose their association with the marketing firm. We focus on this second ty…Read more
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42Science and normative authorityPhilosophical Explorations 14 (3): 229-235. 2011.Philosophical Explorations, Volume 14, Issue 3, Page 229-235, September 2011
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59Mixed motivesAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 71 (3). 1993.My aim in this paper is, by process of elimination, to elucidate and defend an account of how ordinary people act on their values. I will be making both a descriptive claim about our psychology and a further claim about its effectiveness and rational status. I want to suggest that the way in which most of us in fact put our values into practice is, over time, preferable to the ways which initially seem required or at least desirable.
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378Do psychopaths really threaten moral rationalism?Philosophical Explorations 9 (1). 2006.It is often claimed that the existence of psychopaths undermines moral rationalism. I examine a recent empirically based argument for this claim and conclude that rationalist accounts of moral judgement and moral reasoning are perfectly compatible with the evidence cited.
Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Action |
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Social Science |