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293One Ought Too ManyPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 89 (1): 102-124. 2014.Some philosophers hold that „ought‟ is ambiguous between a sense expressing a propositional operator and a sense expressing a relation between an agent and an action. We defend the opposing view that „ought‟ always expresses a propositional operator against Mark Schroeder‟s recent objections that it cannot adequately accommodate an ambiguity in „ought‟ sentences between evaluative and deliberative readings, predicting readings of sentences that are not actually available. We show how adopting an…Read more
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690Four Faces of Moral RealismPhilosophy Compass 2 (6): 820-849. 2007.This essay explains for a general philosophical audience the central issues and strategies in the contemporary moral realism debate. It critically surveys the contribution of some recent scholarship, representing expressivist and pragmatist nondescriptivism, subjectivist and nonsubjectivist naturalism, nonnaturalism and error theory. Four different faces of ‘ moral realism ’ are distinguished: semantic, ontological, metaphysical, and normative. The debate is presented as taking shape under diale…Read more
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211Against All Reason? Scepticism about the Instrumental NormIn Charles Pigden (ed.), Hume on Is and Ought, Palgrave-macmillan. 2010.Some of the opponents of desire-based views of normativity seek to undermine them by arguing that even the existence of instrumental normativity (reasons to pursue the means to your ends) entails the existence of a desire-independent rational norm, the instrumental norm. Once we grant the existence of one such norm, there seems to be no principled reason for not allowing others. I clarify this alleged norm, identifying two criteria that any satisfactory candidate must meet: reasonable expectatio…Read more
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79The Pragmatics of Normative DisagreementIn Guy Fletcher & Michael Ridge (eds.), Having It Both Ways: Hybrid Theories and Modern Metaethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 124-148. 2014.Relational theories of normative language allegedly face special problems in accounting for the extent of disagreement, but this is everybody’s problem because normative sentences are relativized to different information in contexts of deliberation and advice. This paper argues that a relational theory provides a pragmatic solution that accounts for some disagreements as involving inconsistent preferences rather than beliefs. This is shown to be superior to the semantic solution offered by expre…Read more
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661Responding to NormativityIn Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 2, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 220--39. 2007.I believe that normative force depends on desire. This view faces serious difficulties, however, and has yet to be vindicated. This paper sketches an Argument from Voluntary Response, attempting to establish this dependence of normativity on desire by appeal to the autonomous character of our experience of normative authority, and the voluntary character of our responses to it. I first offer an account of desiring as mentally aiming intrinsically at some end. I then argue that behaviour is only …Read more
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43OughtIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.Encyclopedia article on the meaning of 'ought'.
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126Deontic Modality Today: IntroductionPacific Philosophical Quarterly 95 (4): 421-423. 2014.Introduction to a special issue of PPQ of papers from a conference on deontic modality held at USC in 2013.
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568What ought probably means, and why you can’t detach itSynthese 177 (1). 2009.Some intuitive normative principles raise vexing 'detaching problems' by their failure to license modus ponens. I examine three such principles (a self-reliance principle and two different instrumental principles) and recent stategies employed to resolve their detaching problems. I show that solving these problems necessitates postulating an indefinitely large number of senses for 'ought'. The semantics for 'ought' that is standard in linguistics offers a unifying strategy for solving these prob…Read more
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222Teaching & learning guide for: Moral realism and moral nonnaturalismPhilosophy Compass 3 (3): 570-572. 2008.
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16Price, A. W., Contextuality in Practical Reason, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008, xxxiv + 208, US$70 (cloth) (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 88 (1): 187-190. 2010.This Article does not have an abstract
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1075Metaethical Contextualism DefendedEthics 121 (1): 7-36. 2010.We defend a contextualist account of deontic judgments as relativized both to (i) information and to (ii) standards or ends, against recent objections that turn on practices of moral disagreement. Kolodny & MacFarlane argue that information-relative contextualism cannot accommodate the connection between deliberation and advice; we suggest in response that they misidentify the basic concerns of deliberating agents. For pragmatic reasons, semantic assessments of normative claims sometimes are eva…Read more
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1913The Reasons that MatterAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (1). 2006.Bernard Williams's motivational reasons-internalism fails to capture our first-order reasons judgements, while Derek Parfit's nonnaturalistic reasons-externalism cannot explain the nature or normative authority of reasons. This paper offers an intermediary view, reformulating scepticism about external reasons as the claim not that they don't exist but rather that they don't matter. The end-relational theory of normative reasons is proposed, according to which a reason for an action is a fact tha…Read more
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497Recent work on normativityAnalysis 70 (2): 331-346. 2010.Survey of some recent literature on normativity, including nonreductionist, neo-Aristotelian, neo-Humean, expressivist, and constructivist views
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451Oughts and endsPhilosophical Studies 143 (3). 2008.This paper advances a reductive semantics for ‘ought’ and a naturalistic theory of normativity. It gives a unified analysis of predictive, instrumental, and categorical uses of ‘ought’: the predictive ‘ought’ is basic, and is interpreted in terms of probability. Instrumental ‘oughts’ are analyzed as predictive ‘oughts’ occurring under an ‘in order that’ modifer (the end-relational theory). The theory is then extended to categorical uses of ‘ought’: it is argued that they are special rhetorical u…Read more
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114Explaining ReasonsDeutsches Jahrbuch Fuer Philosophie 4 112-126. 2012.What does it mean to call something a “reason”? This paper offers a unifying semantics for the word ‘reason’, challenging three ideas that are popular in contemporary philosophy; (i) that ‘reason’ is semantically ambiguous, (ii) that the concept of a normative reason is the basic normative concept, and (iii) that basic normative concepts are unanalyzable. Nonnormative uses of ‘reason’ are taken as basic, and as meaning explanation why. Talk about normative reasons for action is analyzed in te…Read more
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475Reasons for action: Internal vs. externalStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.Often, when there is a reason for you to do something, it is the kind of thing to motivate you to do it. For example, if Max and Caroline are deciding whether to go to the Alcove for dinner, Caroline might mention as a reason in favor, the fact that the Alcove serves onion rings the size of doughnuts, and Max might mention as a reason against, the fact that it is so difficult to get parking there this time of day. It is some sign—perhaps not a perfect sign, but some sign—that each of these reall…Read more
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1216Too Much MoralityIn Paul Bloomfield (ed.), Morality and Self-Interest, Oxford University Press. 2008.This paper addresses the nature and relationship of morality and self-interest, arguing that what we morally ought to do almost always conflicts with what we self-interestedly ought to do. The concept of morality is analyzed as being essentially and radically other-regarding, and the category of the supererogatory is explained as consisting in what we morally ought to do but are not socially expected to do. I express skepticism about whether there is a coherent question, ‘Which ought I all thing…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Normativity |
Practical Reason |
Moral Psychology |