University of Reading
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2008
CV
Birmingham, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics
Normative Ethics
PhilPapers Editorships
Normative Ethics
  •  812
    Moral Error Theory and the Belief Problem
    In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 8, Oxford University Press. pp. 168-194. 2013.
    Moral error theories claim that (i) moral utterances express moral beliefs, that (ii) moral beliefs ascribe moral properties, and that (iii) moral properties are not instantiated. Thus, according to these views, there seems to be conclusive evidence against the truth of our ordinary moral beliefs. Furthermore, many error theorists claim that, even if we accepted moral error theory, we could still in principle keep our first-order moral beliefs. This chapter argues that this last claim makes many…Read more
  •  159
    Review of R. Crisp's Reasons and the Good (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 57 (228). 2007.
    This paper is a short review of Roger Crisp's book Reasons and the Good.
  •  1234
    Naturalism in Metaethics
    In Kelly James Clark (ed.), Blackwell Companion to Naturalism, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 351-368. 2016.
    This chapter offers an introduction to naturalist views in contemporary metaethics. Such views attempt to find a place for normative properties (such as goodness and rightness) in the concrete physical world as it is understood by both science and common sense. The chapter begins by introducing simple naturalist conceptual analyses of normative terms. It then explains how these analyses were rejected in the beginning of the 20th Century due to G.E. Moore’s influential Open Question Argument. Af…Read more
  •  166
    The Argument From Intransigence For Non-cognitivism
    Philosophical Writings 35 (2). 2007.
    There is a classic disagreement in moral psychology about the mental states that constitute the sincere acceptance of moral claims. Cognitivists hold that these states are beliefs aiming at a correct description of the world; whereas non-cognitivists argue that they must be some other kind of attitude. Mark Eli Kalderon has recently presented a new argument for non-cognitivism. He argues that all cognitivist inquiries include certain epistemic obligations for the participants in cases of disagre…Read more
  •  183
    Parfit’s mountain (review)
    The Philosophers' Magazine 54 (54): 102-103. 2011.
    This is a short review of Derek Parfit's On What Matters Volumes 1 and 2.
  •  112
    Review of G. Björnsson et al's (eds.) Motivational Internalism (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 66 (264): 658-661. 2016.
    This is a short review of collection of articles entitled Motivational Internalism, which was edited by Gunnar Björnsson, Caj Strandberg, Ragnar Francén Olinder, John Eriksson, and Fredrik Björklund.
  •  144
    This article is a short book review of Erik Wielenberg's book Robust Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative Realism.
  •  282
    Review of T. M. Scanlon's What We Owe to Each Other (review)
    Utilitas 19 (4): 524-526. 2007.
    This paper is a short review of T.M. Scanlon's book What We Owe to Each Other. The book itself is already a philosophical classic. It defends a contractualist ethical theory but also has many interesting things to say about reasons, value, well-being, promises, relativism, and so on.
  •  119
    This is a review of three books by Thomas Hurka. The first one, Drawing Morals - Essays in Ethical Theory, is a collection of Hurka's previously published articles. The second one, The Best Things in Life, is a short book on happiness, pleasure and love intended for the general audience. Finally, the third book, Underivative Duty is a collection of articles edited by Hurka on British Moral Philosophers from Sidgwick to Ewing.
  •  159
    This is a review of Michael Devitt's collection of previously published articles entitled Putting Metaphysics First: Essays on Metaphysics and Epistemology. The review also suggests a new way of formulation the realism/anti-realism contrast on the basis of Devitt's work. This contrast is understood in terms explanatory priority: should we in a given domain begin our theorizing from metaphysics (realism) or semantics (anti-realism)?
  •  457
    Non-Realist Cognitivism, Truth and Objectivity
    Acta Analytica 32 (2): 193-212. 2017.
    In On What Matters, Derek Parfit defends a new metaethical theory, which he calls non-realist cognitivism. It claims that normative judgments are beliefs; that some normative beliefs are true; that the normative concepts that are a part of the propositions that are the contents of normative beliefs are irreducible, unanalysable and of their own unique kind; and that neither the natural features of the reality nor any additional normative features of the reality make the relevant normative belief…Read more
  •  63
    Deontic Modality (review)
    Analysis 78 (2): 354-363. 2018.
    This is a critical notice of Nate Charlow and Matthew Chrisman's (eds.) edited collection of articles entitled Deontic Modality. It begins from a brief overview of Angelika Kratzer's standard ordering semantic model for understanding deontic modals such as 'ought', 'must', and 'may' and some of the problems of this model. The focus is then on how many of the articles of this collection reach to these problems by either developing the standard model further or by formulating alternatives to it. T…Read more
  •  829
    An Improved Whole Life Satisfaction Theory of Happiness
    International Journal of Wellbeing 1 (1): 149-166. 2011.
    According to the popular Whole Life Satisfaction theories of happiness, an agent is happy when she judges that her life fulfils her ideal life-plan. Fred Feldman has recently argued that such views cannot accommodate the happiness of spontaneous or pre-occupied agents who do not consider how well their lives are going. In this paper, I formulate a new Whole Life Satisfaction theory which can deal with this problem. My proposal is inspired by Michael Smith’s advice-model of desirability. Accordin…Read more
  •  165
    Essays on Derek Parfit's On what matters (edited book)
    Wiley-Blackwell. 2009.
    World–renowned British philosopher Derek Parfit′s On What Matters is certain to change the face of some of the most fundamental concerns of moral philosophy – including the nature of practical reasons and rationality, and the interpretation of Kantian Ethics and its relation to consequentialism. It will also initiate new debates about the freedom of the will, the nature of moral attitudes and properties, the relationship between prudentiality and ethics, and the significance of desiring. In Essa…Read more
  •  587
    Consequentialist Options
    Utilitas 26 (3): 276-302. 2014.
    According to traditional forms of act-consequentialism, an action is right if and only if no other action in the given circumstances would have better consequences. It has been argued that this view does not leave us enough freedom to choose between actions which we intuitively think are morally permissible but not required options. In the first half of this article, I will explain why the previous consequentialist responses to this objection are less than satisfactory. I will then attempt to sh…Read more
  •  152
    This is a book review of Gerald Gaus's book The Order of Public Reason: A Theory of Freedom and Morality in a Diverse and Bounded World.
  •  1268
    Buck-passing accounts of value
    Philosophy Compass 4 (5): 768-779. 2009.
    This paper explores the so-called buck-passing accounts of value. These views attempt to use normative notions, such as reasons and ought to explain evaluative notions, such as goodness and value . Thus, according to Scanlon's well-known view, the property of being good is the formal, higher-order property of having some more basic properties that provide reasons to have certain kind of valuing attitudes towards the objects. I begin by tracing some of the long history of such accounts. I then de…Read more
  •  196
    This is a longer critical notice of T.M. Scanlon's book Moral Dimensions. The main crux of the article is to investigate how Scanlon's claims about the moral significance of intentions and reactive attitudes in this book fit with the earlier contractualist ethical theory which he presented in What We Owe to Each Other.
  •  83
    This is a short review of James Lenman and Yonatan Shemmer's (eds.) collection of articles Constructivism in Practical Philosophy.
  •  830
    Contractualism and Climate Change
    In Marcello Di Paola & Gianfranco Pellegrino (eds.), Canned Heat: Ethics and Politics of Climate Change, Routledge. pp. 115-128. 2014.
    Climate change is ‘a complex problem raising issues across and between a large number of disciplines, including physical and life sciences, political science, economics, and psychology, to name just a few’ (Gardiner 2006: 397). It is also a moral problem. Therefore, in this chapter, I will consider what kind of a contribution an ethical theory called ‘contractualism’ can make to the climate change debates. This chapter first introduces contractualism. It then describes a simple climate change…Read more
  •  516
    Contractualist Replies to the Redundancy Objections
    Theoria 71 (1): 38-58. 2005.
    This paper is a defence of T.M. Scanlon's contractualism - the view that an action is wrong if it is forbidden by the principles which no one could reasonably reject. Such theories have been argued to be redundant in two ways. They are claimed to assume antecedent moral facts to explain which principles could not be reasonably rejected, and the reasons they provide to follow the non-rejectable principles are said to be unnecessary given that we already have sufficient reasons not to do the acts …Read more
  •  272
    I will begin this paper by identifying the problem within the theory of ethics, which contractualism as a moral theory is attempting to address. It is not that of solving the problem of moral motivation like the ‘arch-contractualist’, Thomas Scanlon, often claims, but rather that of describing a class of fundamental moral reasons – contractualist reasons for short. In the second section, I will defend the contractualist idea of how the nature of these moral reasons provides us with sufficient, i…Read more
  •  632
    Judgment Internalism: An Argument from Self-Knowledge
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (3): 489-503. 2018.
    Judgment internalism about evaluative judgments is the view that there is a necessary internal connection between evaluative judgments and motivation understood as desires. The debate about judgment internalism has reached a standoff some time ago. In this paper, I outline a new argument for judgment internalism. This argument does not rely on intuitions about cases, but rather it has the form of an inference to the best explanation. I argue that the best philosophical explanations of how we kno…Read more
  •  462
    A dilemma for rule-consequentialism
    Philosophia 36 (1): 141-150. 2008.
    Rule-consequentialists tend to argue for their normative theory by claiming that their view matches our moral convictions just as well as a pluralist set of Rossian duties. As an additional advantage, rule-consequentialism offers a unifying justification for these duties. I challenge the first part of the ruleconsequentialist argument and show that Rossian duties match our moral convictions better than the rule-consequentialist principles. I ask the rule-consequentialists a simple question. In t…Read more
  •  431
    Contractualism and the Counter-Culture Challenge
    Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 7 184-206. 2017.
    T. M. Scanlon’s contractualism attempts to give an account of right and wrong in terms of the moral code that could not be reasonably rejected. Reasonable rejectability is then a function of what kind of consequences the general adoption of different moral codes has for different individuals. It has been shown that moral codes should be compared at a lower than 100% level of social acceptance. This leads to the counter-culture challenge. The problem is that the cultural background of the individ…Read more
  •  80
    Review of Errol Lord and Barry Maguire's (eds.) Weighing Reasons (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2016 (7). 2016.
    This is a short review of a collection of articles entitled Weighing Reasons edited by Errol Lord and Barry Maguire
  •  477
    Contractualism as Restricted Constructivism
    Topoi 37 (4): 571-579. 2018.
    Metaethics is often dominated by both realist views according to which moral claims are made true by either non-natural or natural properties and by non-cognitivist views according to which these claims express desire-like attitudes. It is sometimes suggested that constructivism is a fourth alternative, but it has remained opaque just how it differs from the other views. To solve this problem, this article first describes a clear constructivist theory based on Crispin Wright’s anti-realism. It t…Read more
  •  495
    Contractualism and the Conditional Fallacy
    Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 4 113-137. 2014.
    Most contractualist ethical theories have a subjunctivist structure. This means that they attempt to make sense of right and wrong in terms of a set of principles which would be accepted in some idealized, non-actual circumstances. This makes these views vulnerable to the so-called conditional fallacy objection. The moral principles that are appropriate for the idealized circumstances fail to give a correct account of what is right and wrong in the ordinary situations. This chapter uses two vers…Read more
  •  807
    Non-Naturalism and Reference
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 11 (2): 1-24. 2017.
    Metaethical realists disagree about the nature of normative properties. Naturalists think that they are ordinary natural properties: causally efficacious, a posteriori knowable, and usable in the best explanations of natural and social sciences. Non-naturalist realists, in contrast, argue that they are sui generis: causally inert, a priori knowable and not a part of the subject matter of sciences. It has been assumed so far that naturalists can explain causally how the normative predicates manag…Read more