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3404Reconsidering the Donohue-Levitt HypothesisAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 90 (4): 583-620. 2016.According to the Donohue-Levitt hypothesis, the legalization of abor- tion in the United States in the 1970s explains some of the decrease in crime in the 1990s. In this paper, I challenge this hypothesis. First, I argue against the intermediate mechanisms whereby abortion in the 1970s is supposed to cause a decrease in crime in the 1990s. Second, I argue against the correlations that sup- port this causal relationship.
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1707Kant, the Practical Postulates, and Clifford’s PrincipleContemporary Pragmatism 17 (1): 21-47. 2020.In this paper I argue that Kant would have endorsed Clifford’s principle. The paper is divided into four sections. In the first, I review Kant’s argument for the practical postulates. In the second, I discuss a traditional objection to the style of argument Kant employs. In the third, I explain how Kant would respond to this objection and how this renders the practical postulates consistent with Clifford’s principle. In the fourth, I introduce positive grounds for thinking that Kant would have e…Read more
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1506Kant and the duty to promote one’s own happinessInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 65 (3): 327-338. 2022.In his discussion of the duty of benevolence in §27 of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant argues that agents have no obligation to promote their own happiness, for ‘this happens unavoidably’ (MS, AA 6:451). In this paper I argue that Kant should not have said this. I argue that Kant should have conceded that agents do have an obligation to promote their own happiness.
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1493Veganism, Animal Welfare, and Causal ImpotenceJournal of Animal Ethics 10 (2): 161-176. 2020.Proponents of the utilitarian animal welfare argument (AWA) for veganism maintain that it is reasonable to expect that adopting a vegan diet will decrease animal suffering. In this paper I argue otherwise. I maintain that (i) there are plausible scenarios in which refraining from meat-consumption will not decrease animal suffering; (ii) the utilitarian AWA rests on a false dilemma; and (iii) there are no reasonable grounds for the expectation that adopting a vegan diet will decrease animal suffe…Read more
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985Kant’s post-1800 Disavowal of the Highest Good Argument for the Existence of GodKant Yearbook 10 (1): 63-83. 2018.I have two main goals in this paper. The first is to argue for the thesis that Kant gave up on his highest good argument for the existence of God around 1800. The second is to revive a dialogue about this thesis that died out in the 1960s. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I reconstruct Kant’s highest good argument. In the second, I turn to the post-1800 convolutes of Kant’s Opus postumum to discuss his repeated claim that there is only one way to argue for the existence o…Read more
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966Freedom, Morality, and the Propensity to EvilKantian Studies Online (1): 65-90. 2014.In Book I of the Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason Kant offers an explanation of freedom and moral good and evil that is different from that offered in the Groundwork for a Metaphysics of Morals. My primary goal in this paper is to analyze and elucidate this new theory. My secondary goal is to contrast this new theory with the older one that it is replacing. I argue that the new theory, which centers on the idea that evil involves a sort of misprioritizing, enables Kant to get around…Read more
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939Positive Duties, Maxim Realism and the Deliberative FieldPhilosophical Inquiry 41 (4): 2-34. 2017.My goal in this paper is to show that it is not the case that positive duties can be derived from Kant’s so-called universalizability tests. I begin by explaining in detail what I mean by this and distinguishing it from a few things that I am not doing in this paper. After that, I confront the idea of a maxim contradictory, a concept that is advanced by many com- mentators in the attempt to derive positive duties from the universalizability tests. I ex- plain what a maxim contradictory is and ho…Read more
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866Defending the Traditional Interpretations of Kant’s Formula of a Law of NatureTheoria 66 (158): 76-102. 2019.In this paper I defend the traditional interpretations of Kant’s Formula of a Law of Nature from recent attacks leveled by Faviola Rivera-Castro, James Furner, Ido Geiger, Pauline Kleingeld and Sven Nyholm. After a short introduction, the paper is divided into four main sections. In the first, I set out the basics of the three traditional interpretations, the Logical Contradiction Interpretation, the Practical Contradiction Interpretation and the Teleological Contradiction Interpretation. In the…Read more
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803Kant and the trolleyJournal of Value Inquiry (3): 1-11. 2021.Thomson's goal in presenting her famous Trolley problem is to evince an explanatory weakness in the principle that killing is worse than letting die. Along the way, she tries to evince a similar weakness in the Kantian principle forbidding the use of people as mere means (henceforth: the Kantian prohibition). However, Thomson's negative assessment of the Kantian prohibition is unwarranted, and that is what this paper aims to show. The paper is divided into three sections. In the first, I introdu…Read more
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739Positive Duties, Kant’s Universalizability Tests, and ContradictionsSouthwest Philosophy Review 36 (1): 113-120. 2020.In this paper I am going to raise a problem for recent attempts to derive positive duties from Kant’s universalizability tests. In particular, I argue that these recent attempts are subject to reductio and that the most obvious way of patching them renders them impracticable. I begin by explaining the motivation for these attempts. Then I describe how they work and begin my attack. I conclude by considering some patches.
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713A Dilemma for Mathematical ConstructivismAxiomathes 31 (1): 63-72. 2021.In this paper I argue that constructivism in mathematics faces a dilemma. In particular, I maintain that constructivism is unable to explain (i) the application of mathematics to nature and (ii) the intersubjectivity of mathematics unless (iii) it is conjoined with two theses that reduce it to a form of mathematical Platonism. The paper is divided into five sections. In the first section of the paper, I explain the difference between mathematical constructivism and mathematical Platonism and I o…Read more
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691Kant’s Philosophy of Moral LuckSophia 60 (2): 365-387. 2021.In the modern moral luck debate, Kant is standardly taken to be the enemy of moral luck. My goal in this paper is to show that this is mistaken. The paper is divided into six sections. In the first, I show that participants in the moral luck literature take moral luck to be anathema to Kantian ethics. In the second, I explain the kind of luck I am going to focus on here: consequence luck, a species of resultant luck. In the third, I explain why philosophers have taken Kantian ethics to reject mo…Read more
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684A Kantian responds to SantayanaSOCRATES 3 (1): 66-79. 2015.In this paper, I have argued that whatever might be said about his attack on other German philosophers, Santayana’s attack on Kant, despite its subtlety, its force and its intelligence, is fundamentally misguided. Teasing out where Santayana’s attack rests on misunderstandings of Kant’s philosophy is a useful exercise: it is useful for Kantians, for it gives us a chance to show Kant at his best; it is useful for Santayana scholars, for it reminds us that Santayana, for all his brilliance, was no…Read more
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657Consent and the Mere Means PrincipleJournal of Value Inquiry 1-19. 2022.Kant’s Formula of Humanity can be analyzed into two parts. One is an injunction to treat humanity always as an end. The other is a prohibition on using humanity as a mere means. The second is often referred to as the FH prohibition or the mere means prohibition. It has become popular to interpret this prohibition in terms of consent. The idea is that, if X uses Y's humanity as a means and Y does not consent to it, then X uses Y's humanity as a mere means. There is then debate about the kind of c…Read more
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644The Apple of Kant's Ethics: i‐Maxims as the Locus of AssessmentPacific Philosophical Quarterly 104 (3): 559-577. 2022.I want to distinguish between maxims at three levels of abstraction. At the first level are what I shall call individual maxims, or i‐maxims: maxim tokens as adopted by particular rational beings. At the second level are abstract maxims, or a‐maxims: abstract principles distinct from any individual who adopts them. At the third level are maxim kinds, or k‐maxims: sets of various action‐guiding principles that are grouped on the basis of their content. In this paper, I argue for the thesis that i…Read more
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643Rethinking Kant on DutyReview of Metaphysics 74 (296): 497-526. 2021.According to a common caricature of Kant’s ethics, it is synonymous with the Categorical Imperative (CI) and with the sublime and clarion call of duty. But in this paper, I argue that the conjunction of Kant’s concept of duty and his idea of morality as a system of imperatives is unsustainable on the grounds that it commits him to the following two theses: (I) If an agent has a duty to D, then she must be constrained to D, and (II) the Supreme Law of Morality always manifests in the form of duty…Read more
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637Can Positive Duties be Derived from Kant's Formula of Universal Law?Kantian Review 19 (1): 93-108. 2014.According to the standard reading of Kant's formula of universal law (FUL), positive duties can be derived from FUL. In this article, I argue that the standard reading does not work. In the first section, I articulate FUL and what I mean by a positive duty. In the second section, I set out an intuitive version of the standard reading of FUL and argue that it does not work. In the third section, I set out a more rigorous version of the standard reading of FUL and argue that even this more rigorou…Read more
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632The Problem of the Kantian LineInternational Philosophical Quarterly 59 (2): 193-217. 2019.In this paper I discuss the problem of the Kantian line. The problem arises because the locus of value in Kantian ethics is rationality, which (counterintuitively) seems to entail that there are no duties to groups of beings like children. I argue that recent attempts to solve this problem by Wood and O’Neill overlook an important aspect of it before posing my own solution.
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631Kant and the foundations of morality (review)British Journal for the History of Philosophy 26 (2): 403-405. 2018.
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628Obligatory Actions, Obligatory MaximsKantian Review 26 (1): 1-25. 2021.In this paper, I confront Parfit’s Mixed Maxims Objection. I argue that recent attempts to respond to this objection fail, and I argue that their failure is compounded by the failure of recent attempts to show how the Formula of Universal Law can be used to demarcate the category of obligatory maxims. I then set out my own response to the objection, drawing on remarks from Kant’s Metaphysics of Morals for inspiration and developing a novel account of how the Formula of Universal Law can be emplo…Read more
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585Kant’s theory of conscienceIn Muchnik Pablo & Thorndike Oliver (eds.), Rethinking Kant: Volume IV, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. pp. 135-156. 2015.In this paper I discuss Kant’s theory of conscience. In particular, I explicate the following two claims that Kant makes in the Metaphysics of Morals: (1) an erring conscience is an absurdity and (2) if an agent has acted according to his/her conscience, then s/he has done all that can be required of him/her. I argue that (1) is a very specific claim that does not bear on the problem of moral knowledge. I argue that (2) rests on a strongly internalist line of argument.
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570Is the Final Chapter of the Metaphysics of Morals also the Final Chapter of the Practical Postulates?American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 89 (2): 309-332. 2015.In this paper I trace the arc of Kant’s critical stance on the belief in God, beginning with the Critique of Pure Reason (1781) and culminating in the final chapter of the Metaphysics of Morals (1797). I argue that toward the end of his life, Kant changed his views on two important topics. First, despite his stinging criticism of it in the Critique of Pure Reason, by the time of the Metaphysics of Morals, Kant seems to endorse the physico-theological argument. Second, some time around the public…Read more
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556Reassessing the foundations of Korsgaard’s approach to ethicsDialegesthai. Rivista Telematica di Filosofia. 2017.In a series of well known publications, Christine Korsgaard argues for the claim that an agent acts morally just in case s/he acts autonomously. Two of Korsgaard's signature arguments for the connection between morality and autonomy are the "argument from spontaneity" and the "regress argument." In this paper, I argue that neither the argument from spontaneity nor the regress argument is able to show that an agent would be acting wrongly even if s/he acts in a paradigmatically heteronomous fashi…Read more
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534The Interconnection between Willing and Believing for Kant’s and Kantian EthicsInternational Philosophical Quarterly 54 (2): 143-157. 2014.In this paper I look at the connection between willing and believing for Kant’s and Kantian ethics. I argue that the two main formulations of the categorical imperative are relativized to agents according to their beliefs. I then point out three different ways in which Kant or a present-day Kantian might defend this position. I conclude with some remarks about the contrast between Kant’s legal theory and his ethical theory
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532Defending the possible consent interpretation from actual objectionsJournal of Early Modern Studies 3 (2): 88-100. 2014.In this paper, I defend the possible consent interpretation of Kant’s formula of humanity from objections according to which it has counterintuitive implications. I do this in two ways. First, I argue that to a great extent, the supposed counterintuitive implications rest on a misunderstanding of the possible consent interpretation. Second, I argue that to the extent that these supposed counterintuitive implications do not rest on a misunderstanding of the possible consent interpretation, they a…Read more
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529Samuel J. Kerstein, How to Treat Persons (review)Kantian Review 19 (2): 319-323. 2014.Samuel Kerstein’s recent (2013) How To Treat Persons is an ambitious attempt to develop a new, broadly Kantian account of what it is to treat others as mere means and what it means to act in accordance with others’ dignity. His project is explicitly nonfoundationalist: his interpretation stands or falls on its ability to accommodate our pretheoretic intuitions, and he does an admirable job of handling carefully a range of well fleshed out and sometimes subtle examples. In what follows, I shall g…Read more
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525A Kantian take on fallible principles and fallible judgmentsAmerican Dialectic 4 (1): 1-27. 2014.According to Kant, if an agent acts according to his/her conscience, then s/he has done all that s/he ought as far as morality is concerned. But Kant thinks that agents can be mistaken in their subjective determinations of their duties. That is, Kant thinks it is possible for an agent to believe that some action X is right even though it is an objective truth that X is not right; according to Kant, agents do not have infallible knowledge of right and wrong. In this paper, I explore this doctrine…Read more
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514Why Positive Duties cannot Be Derived from Kant’s Formula of Universal LawPhilosophia 50 (3): 1189-1206. 2022.Ever since Hegel famously objected to Kant’s universalization formulations of the Categorical Imperative on the grounds that they are nothing but an empty formalism, there has been continual debate about whether he was right. In this paper I argue that Hegel got things at least half-right: I argue that even if negative duties (duties to omit actions or not to adopt maxims) can be derived from the universalization formulations, positive duties (duties to commit actions or to adopt maxims) cannot.…Read more
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505A Realistic Argument for Scientific Realism: How to be a Realist Without Really Knowing ItPhilosophia 48 (5): 1901-1914. 2020.In this paper I provide a novel argument for scientific realism. In contrast to most recent defenses of SR, my defense of SR does not rely on the no-miracles argument. Instead, I take a more unconventional approach: I focus on the different kinds of justification available to different individuals in relation to different kinds of propositions. I maintain that this alternative focus shows that most people are warranted in believing many propositions about unobservables. The paper is divided into…Read more
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476Reconsidering RGV, AA 06: 26n and the Meaning of ‘Humanity’In Stefano Bacin, Alfredo Ferrarin, Claudio La Rocca & Margit Ruffing (eds.), Kant und die Philosophie in weltbürgerlicher Absicht. Akten des XI. Internationalen Kant-Kongresses, De Gruyter. pp. 307-316. 2013.At 6:26n Kant famously (or infamously) claims that humanity and personality are not necessarily coextensional. This claim has been characterized in the secondary literature as Kant's worst mistake and as an unnecessary repudiation of his earlier (and more plausible) ethical thought. I argue that this characterization of 6:26n rests on a misinterpretation of the term `humanity'. I try to show that Kant's claim at 6:26n not only is not problematic; it constitutes a powerful reminder of the kind of…Read more
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