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133The practice of value - replyIn Jay Wallace (ed.), The Practice of Value, Oxford University Press. 2003.The privilege of having three sets of extensive and hard-hitting comments on one's work is as welcome as it is rare, and especially so on this occasion as the lectures were, for me, but thefirst (well, not entirely first) stab at a subject I hope to explore at greater length. The reflectionsthat follow will respond to some of the criticisms, but will not be a point by point reply. I will use the occasion to clarify some obscurities in the lectures, and to contrast my view with some of my critics…Read more
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233Explaining normativity: On rationality and the justification of reasonRatio 12 (4). 1999.Aspects of the world are normative in as much as they or their existence constitute reasons for persons, i.e. grounds which make certain beliefs, moods, emotions, intentions or actions appropriate or inappropriate. Our capacities to perceive and understand how things are, and what response is appropriate to them, and our ability to respond appropriately, make us into persons, i.e. creatures with the ability to direct their own life in accordance with their appreciation of themselves and their en…Read more
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65Personal practical conflictsIn Peter Baumann & Monika Betzler (eds.), Practical Conflicts: New Philosophical Essays, Cambridge University Press. pp. 172--196. 2004.
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592About morality and the nature of lawAmerican Journal of Jurisprudence 48 (1): 1-15. 2003.In support of my longstanding claim that the traditional divide between natural law and legal positivist theories of law, the present paper explores a variety of necessary connections between law and morality which are consistent with theories of law traditionally identified as positivist.
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464I will provisionally take the Guise of the Good thesis to consist of three propositions: (1) Intentional actions are actions performed for reasons, as those are seen by the agents. (2) Specifying the intention which makes an action intentional identifies central features of the reason(s) for which the action is performed. (3) Reasons for action are such reasons by being facts which establish that the action has some value. From these it is said to follow that (4) Intentional actions are actions …Read more
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26The concept of a legal systemClarendon Press. 1970.What does it mean to assert or deny the existence of a legal system? How can one determine whether a given law belongs to a certain legal system? What kind of structure do these systems have, that is--what necessary relations obtain between their laws? The examination of these problems in this volume leads to a new approach to traditional jurisprudential question, though the conclusions are based on a critical appraisal, particularly those of Bentham, Austin, Kelsen, and Hart.
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183Morality as Interpretation:Interpretation and Social Criticism. Michael WalzerEthics 101 (2): 392-. 1991.Review of Walzer on morality as interpretation
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173Mixing ValuesAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 65 (1). 1991.Discussion of the possibilities of comparing values of radically different kinds, and values that are essentially constituted by other simpler values
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70Thinking and doing: The philosophical foundations of institutions, by Hector-Neri Castañeda (review)Philosophical Books 18 (2): 81-83. 1977.
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76A broadly sketched exploration of the theory of state-law and of the ways developments in international law are transforming states
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24La autoridad del derecho: ensayos sobre derecho y moralUniversidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas. 1982.
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451Reason, Reasons and NormativityIn Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 5, Oxford University Press. 2010.
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156If promises are binding there must be a reason to do as one promised. The paper is motivated by belief that there is a difficulty in explaining what that reason is. It arises because the reasons that promising creates are content-independent. Similar difficulties arise regarding other content-independent reasons, though their solution need not be the same. Section One introduces an approach to promises, and outlines an account of them that I have presented before. It forms the backdrop for the …Read more
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248The Truth in ParticularismIn Brad Hooker & Margaret Olivia Little (eds.), Moral particularism, Oxford University Press. pp. 48--78. 2000.Particularism's model of explanation is challenged on the ground that a sensible intelligibility principle requires that there must be an explanation for the difference between a good and a bad action. Raz is concerned with what it is to be guided by reason, as well as with the results of the fact that reason can often undermine particular outcomes. What determines the moral status of an action must extend beyond what the agent's reason for acting is. It is argued that there is a clear distincti…Read more
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574Facing diversity: The case of epistemic abstinencePhilosophy and Public Affairs 19 (1): 3-46. 1990.
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877The Morality of FreedomOxford University Press. 1986.Ranging over central issues of morals and politics and the nature of freedom and authority, this study examines the role of value-neutrality, rights, equality, ...
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296Can there be a theory of law?In Martin P. Golding & William A. Edmundson (eds.), The Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, Wiley-blackwell. 2004.The paper deals with the possibility of a theory of the nature of law as such, a theory which will be necessarily true of all law. It explores the relations between explanations of concepts and of the things they are concepts of, the possibility that the law has essential properties, and the possibility that the law changes its nature over time, and that what is law at a given place and time depends on the culture and concepts of that place and time. It also considers the possibility of understa…Read more
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2The Authority of Law in the Predicament of Contemporary Social TheoryNotre Dame Journal of Law, Ethics and Public Policy 1 115-138. 1984.
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213Darwall on rational careUtilitas 18 (4): 400-414. 2006.Stephen Darwall's understanding of what kind of life is a good life, good for the person whose life it is, belongs in the same family as, among others, Scanlon's and mine. It is a family of views about well-being which descends from Aristotle, and Darwall has much of interest to say about the good life, and particularly about Aristotle's views on the subject. Many of the observations central to his position seem to me cogent, and are shared by other writers. These include three important proposi…Read more
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3Value, Respect, and AttachmentCambridge University Press. 2001.The book is a contribution to the study of values, as they affect both our personal and our public life. It defends the view that values are necessarily universal, on the ground that that is a condition of their intelligibility. It does, however, reject most common conceptions of universality, like those embodied in the writings on human rights. It aims to reconcile the universality of value with the social dependence of value and the centrality to our life of deep attachments to people and coun…Read more
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274Incommensurability and agencyIn Engaging Reason, Oxford University Press Uk. pp. 110-28. 2002.Human agents act for reasons that contribute to their good. However, in our explanation of why agents act for reasons that depend on what they value, we encounter the problem of situations in which goods are neither better than others nor are of equal value. The incommensurability of value can then be seen to lead to an incommensurability of reasons for action. Examining rationalist and classical conceptions of human agency, Raz uses the presence of incommensurability to understand how this affe…Read more
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161I will say something on two or three related but distinct topics. First, something on the grounding of normative beliefs, a topic – as I see it – in moral epistemology, and then after a brief remark on explanation, something against a certain understanding of basic principles. My observations were prompted by reflection on Jerry’s desire to rescue justice from the facts.
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Columbia UniversityProfessor (Part-time)
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King's College LondonProfessor (Part-time)
London, London, City of, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
| Meta-Ethics |
| Philosophy of Law |
| Social and Political Philosophy |
| Value Theory, Misc |