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33The importance of being conceptualJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 45 (2): 117-123. 1986.
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47Book Review:Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism. Michael Slote (review)Ethics 98 (1): 168-. 1987.
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107Sober and Wilson on psychological altruism (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 65 (3). 2002.In their marvelous book, Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior, Sober and Wilson identify two distinct problems of altruism.’ The problem of Evolutionary Altruism (EA) “is to show how behaviors that benefit others at the expense of self can evolve;” (17) group selection is the key to the solution of this problem. The problem of Psychological Altruism (PA) is to determine whether people “have altruistic desires that are psychologically ultimate.” (201) After carefully c…Read more
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82David Lewis on ConventionCanadian Journal of Philosophy 5 (1). 1975.In this paper I show that the definition of convention offered by david lewis in his book "convention: a philosophical study" fails to shed much light on "our common, Established concept of convention." first I set out lewis' definition of convention. I then show, Via counterexample, That satisfaction of lewis' definition is not a necessary condition for something to be a convention. I also show via counterexample that it is doubtful that satisfaction of lewis' definition is a sufficient conditi…Read more
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525When Utilitarians Should Be Virtue TheoristsUtilitas 19 (2): 160. 2007.The contrast typically made between utilitarianism and virtue theory is overdrawn. Utilitarianism is a universal emulator: it implies that we should lie, cheat, steal, even appropriate Aristotle, when that is what brings about the best outcomes. In some cases and in some worlds it is best for us to focus as precisely as possible on individual acts. In other cases and worlds it is best for us to be concerned with character traits. Global environmental change leads to concerns about character beca…Read more
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59On Aims and Methods of Cognitive EthologyPSA: Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association 1992 110-124. 1992.In 1963 Niko Tinbergen published a paper, "On Aims and Methods of Ethology," dedicated to his friend Konrad Lorenz. Here Tinbergen defines ethology as "the biological study of behavior," and seeks to demonstrate "the close affinity between Ethology and the rest of Biology." Tinbergen identifies four major areas of ethology: causation, survival value, evolution, and ontogeny. Our goal is to attempt for cognitive ethology what Tinbergen succeeded in doing for ethology: to clarify its aims and meth…Read more
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New York UniversityDepartment of Philosophy
Animal Studies Initiative, Environmental Studies ProgramOther faculty (Postdoc, Visiting, etc)