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11Review of Robert Audi, The Good in the right: A Theory of Inuition and Intrinsic Value (review)Philosophical Review 115 (4): 540-542. 2006.
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85The ethics of care and empathy • by M. SloteAnalysis 69 (1): 190-192. 2009.Most moral philosophers who have recently expressed sympathy with feminist or ‘care-based’ perspectives on ethical theory have thought that such perspectives can make valuable contributions to more comprehensive ethical theories. Few have thought that an ethics of care can offer a complete normative theory. However, Michael Slote is one of the ambitious few. In his recent book, The Ethics of Care and Empathy, he seeks to show that a care-based perspective can do a lot of service in first-order m…Read more
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3Reasons and the new non-naturalismIn Simon Robertson (ed.), Spheres of Reason, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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18Moral Error: History, Critique, DefenceOxford University Press UK. 2017.Jonas Olson presents a critical survey of moral error theory, the view that there are no moral facts and so all moral claims are false. Part I explores the historical context of the debate; Part II assesses J. L. Mackie's famous arguments; Part III defends error theory against challenges and considers its implications for our moral thinking.
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274Brentano and the Buck-PassersMind 116 (463). 2007.According to T. M. Scanlon's 'buck-passing' analysis of value, x is good means that x has properties that provide reasons to take up positive attitudes vis-à-vis x. Some authors have claimed that this idea can be traced back to Franz Brentano, who said in 1889 that the judgement that x is good is the judgement that a positive attitude to x is correct ('richtig'). The most discussed problem in the recent literature on buckpassing is known as the 'wrong kind of reason' problem (the WKR problem): i…Read more
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31Essays in Moral Skepticism, written by Richard JoyceInternational Journal for the Study of Skepticism 8 (1): 66-71. 2018._ Source: _Page Count 6
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64Revisiting the tropic of value: Reply to Rabinowicz and rønnow-RasmussenPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 67 (2). 2003.In this paper, I defend the view that the values of concrete objects and persons are reducible to the final values of tropes. This reductive account has recently been discussed and rejected by Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen (2003). I begin by explaining why the reduction is appealing in the first place. In my rejoinder to Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen I defend trope-value reductionism against three challenges. I focus mainly on their central objection, that holds that the reduction is untenab…Read more
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186Projectivism and Error in Hume’s EthicsHume Studies 37 (1): 19-42. 2011.This essay argues that while Hume believes both that morality is grounded in our ordinary moral practices, sentiments, and beliefs, and that moral properties are real, he also holds that ordinary moral thinking involves systematically erroneous beliefs about moral properties. These claims, on their face, seem difficult to square with one another but this paper argues that on Hume’s view, they are reconcilable. The reconciliation is effected by making a distinction between Hume’s descriptive meta…Read more
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40Buck‐Passing AccountsIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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213Expressivism and moral certitudePhilosophical Quarterly 59 (235): 202-215. 2009.Michael Smith has recently argued that non-cognitivists are unable to accommodate crucial structural features of moral belief, and in particular that non-cognitivists have trouble accounting for subjects' certitude with respect to their moral beliefs. James Lenman and Michael Ridge have independently constructed 'ecumenical' versions of non-cognitivism, intended to block this objection. We argue that these responses do not work. If ecumenical non-cognitivism, a hybrid view which incorporates bot…Read more
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156The freshman objection to expressivism and what to make of itRatio 23 (1): 87-101. 2010.Cognitivism is the view that the primary function of moral judgements is to express beliefs that purport to say how things are; expressivism is the contrasting view that their primary function is to express some desire-like state of mind. I shall consider what I call the freshman objection to expressivism. It is pretty uncontroversial that this objection rests on simple misunderstandings. There are nevertheless interesting metaethical lessons to learn from the fact that the freshman objection is…Read more