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49The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 1996.It was as a political thinker that Thomas Hobbes first came to prominence, and it is as a political theorist that he is most studied today. Yet the range of his writings extends well beyond morals and politics. Hobbes had distinctive views in metaphysics and epistemology, and wrote about such subjects as history, law, and religion. He also produced full-scale treatises in physics, optics, and geometry. All of these areas are covered in this Companion, most in considerable detail. The volume also…Read more
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2On saying no to history of philosophyIn Tom Sorell & Graham Alan John Rogers (eds.), Analytic Philosophy and History of Philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2005.History of philosophy can be useful and relevant as philosophy even when philosophy is thought to be the solution of ahistorically formulated problems.
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43Morality, consumerism and the internal market in health careJournal of Medical Ethics 23 (2): 71-76. 1997.Unlike the managerially oriented reforms that have brought auditing and accounting into such prominence in the UK National Health Service (NHS), and which seem alien to the culture of the caring professions, consumerist reforms may seem to complement moves towards the acceptance of wide definitions of health, and towards increasing patient autonomy. The empowerment favoured by those who support patient autonomy sounds like the sort of empowerment that is sometimes associated with the patient's c…Read more
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4The Rise of Modern Philosophy: The Tension Between the New and Traditional Philosophies From Machiavelli to Leibniz (edited book)Oxford University Press UK. 1993.`Modern' philosophy in the West is said to have begun with Bacon and Descartes. Their methodological and metaphysical writings, in conjunction with the discoveries that marked the seventeenth-century scientific revolution, are supposed to have interred both Aristotelian and scholastic science and the philosophy that supported it. But did the new or `modern' philosophy effect a complete break with what preceded it? Were Bacon and Descartes untainted by scholastic influences? The theme of this boo…Read more
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149Scientism: philosophy and the infatuation with scienceRoutledge. 1991.SCIENTISM AND 'SCIENTIFIC EMPIRICISM' WHAT IS SCIENTISM? Scientism is the belief that science, especially natural science, is much the most valuable part of ...
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49Morality and EmergencyProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (1): 21-37. 2003.Agents sometimes feel free to resort to underhand or brutal measures in coping with an emergency. Because emergencies seem to relax moral inhibitions as well as carrying the risk of great loss of life or injury, it may seem morally urgent to prevent them or curtail them as far as possible. I discuss some cases of private emergency that go against this suggestion. Prevention seems morally urgent primarily in the case of public emergencies. But these are the responsibility of defensibly partisan a…Read more
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25Organized Crime and Preventive JusticeEthical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (1): 137-153. 2018.By comparison with the prevention of terrorism, the prevention of acts of organized crime might be thought easier to conceptualize precisely and less controversial to legislate against and police. This impression is correct up to a point, because it is possible to arrive at some general characteristics of organized crime, and because legislation against it is not obviously bedeviled by the risk of violating civil or political rights, as in the case of terrorism. But there is a significant residu…Read more
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86Parental Choice and Expert Knowledge in the Debate about MMR and AutismIn Angus Dawson & Marcel Verweij (eds.), Ethics, Prevention, and Public Health, Clarendon Press. 2007.I shall argue that where a coercive public health policy is backed by a clear medical consensus, appropriately reconsidered in the light of claims of doubters, there is sometimes a moral obligation on the part of the public to defer to the experts. The argument will be geared to the continuing controversy in the UK over the safety of the measles/mumps/rubella (MMR) vaccine. vaccine
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12The normative and the explanatory in Hobbes's political philosophyRivista di Storia Della Filosofia 1. 2004.Tom Sorell modifies an interpretation he presented in his book, Hobbes (1986) . He continues to maintain that Hobbesian natural philosophy and Hobbesian civil philosophy are methodologically quite distinct, as well as distinct in subject-matter. But it is misleading to put this by saying that civil philosophy is normative and natural philosophy is explanatory, as if civil philosophy itself weren’t supposed to be explanatory. Civil philosophy can be explanatory in the sense of specifying normativ…Read more
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The Burdensome Freedom of SovereignsIn Tom Sorell & Luc Foisneau (eds.), Leviathan After 350 Years, Clarendon Press. 2004.The freedom of A Hobbesian sovereign is limited by the freedom of other sovereigns but is otherwise extremely extensive. The other side of the coin of this wide latitude, however, are the huge responsibilities and practical challenges of seeing to the good of the people. This involves both the compulsion of obedience and the permission of enterprise on the part of the many. It also calls for equity in the application of law. Overall, the burdensomeness of sovereignty probably vastly outweighs th…Read more
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30Online Grooming and Preventive JusticeCriminal Law and Philosophy 11 (4): 705-724. 2017.In England and Wales, Section 15 of the Sexual Offences Act criminalizes the act of meeting a child—someone under 16—after grooming. The question to be pursued in this paper is whether grooming—I confine myself to online grooming—is justly criminalized. I shall argue that it is. One line of thought will be indirect. I shall first try to rebut a general argument against the criminalization of acts that are preparatory to the commission of serious offences. Grooming is one such act, but there are …Read more
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54The customer is not always rightJournal of Business Ethics 13 (11). 1994.Consumers can sustain markets that are morally questionable. They can make immoral or morally suspect demands of individual businesses, especially small businesses. Even when they do not, the costs to firms of consumer protection can sometimes drive them to ruin. This paper presents cases where deference to the consumer is variously unwarranted, cases that may prompt second thoughts about some kinds of consumerism.
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Schmitt, Hobbes and the politics of emergencyFilozofski Vestnik 24 (2): 223-241. 2003.This paper discusses the disanalogies between Schmitt and Hobbes on responses to emergencies, such as civil disorder. (The paper engages with literature that claims a greater common ground between the two figures than there actually is.)
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45Self, Society and Kantian ImpersonalityThe Monist 74 (1): 30-42. 1991.What view of the person must prevail in a society that claims to be just? There is supposed to be a Kantian answer to this question, according to which people must regard themselves and their fellows as free, equal and capable to acting rationally. In A Theory of Justice Rawls tries to give content to the idea of free, equal and rational persons, but in such a way, according to certain critics, that social relations between these figures appear impoverished. Sandel, for example, has described a …Read more
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40Preventive Policing, Surveillance, and European Counter-TerrorismCriminal Justice Ethics 30 (1): 1-22. 2011.A European Union counter-terrorism strategy was devised in 2005.1 Of its four strands—prevent, pursue, protect, and respond—only two have a direct connection with policing. Perhaps surprisingly, th...
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Seventeenth-century materialismIn G. H. R. Parkinson (ed.), The Renaissance and Seventeenth-Century Rationalism, Routledge. 1993.An article focusing on Hobbes and Gassendi
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12Is there a Human Right to Microfinance?In Tom Sorell & Luis Cabrera (eds.), Microfinance, Rights, and Global Justice, . pp. 27-46. 2015.This chapter is divided into three parts. In the first, I ask whether there is a human right to be spared extreme poverty. The answer is ‘Not necessarily’ if a human right is a legal right, and I argue that ‘human right’ either means a right in international law and associated policy, or else the term has an unacceptably wide sense. In the second section I consider microcredit as a poverty-alleviating mechanism, distinguishing between extreme and relative poverty in developing countries. I argue…Read more
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6Kant's Good Will and Our Good Nature. Second Thoughts about Henson and HermanKant Studien 78 (1): 87-101. 1987.
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192 Hobbes's scheme of the sciencesIn The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes, Cambridge University Press. pp. 45. 1996.More than once in his writings, Hobbes pronounced on the scope and organization of science. He had provocative views about the subjects that could be termed “scientific” about the scientific subjects that were basic, and about the relative benefits of the various sciences. Some of these views reflect his allegiance to the new mechanical philosophy and his opposition to Aristotelianism; others show the influence of Bacon, who was a virtuoso deviser of blueprints for science. Still others belong t…Read more
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58Hobbes on Trade, Consumption and International OrderThe Monist 89 (2): 245-258. 2006.If the conditions for national or state self-sufficiency exist, according to Hobbes, so do conditions of local international peace. Self-sufficiency in the relevant sense does not mean a capacity in one country for producing goods that will meet all local demand. Self-sufficiency can involve local production capable of reliably financing imports to meet local demand. As for local demand, this does not include anything consumers want to buy, but only things they need. In Hobbes's view, to aim for…Read more
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88Leviathan after 350 years (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2004.Tom Sorell and Luc Foisneau bring together original essays by the world's leading Hobbes scholars to discuss Hobbes's masterpiece after three and a half centuries. The contributors address three different themes. The first is the place of Leviathan within Hobbes's output as a political philosopher. What does Leviathan add to The Elements of Law (1640) and De Cive (1642; 1647)? What is the relation between the English Leviathan and the Latin version of the book (1668)? Does Leviathan deserve its …Read more
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3Knowledge and Skepticism (review)Philosophical Books 32 (1): 32-33. 1991.Review of a collection edited by Keith Lehrer and Marjorie Clay (Westview Press, 1989).
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Hobbes-Arg PhilosophersRoutledge. 1986.First Published in 1999. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.
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33Law and equity in HobbesCritical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 19 (1): 29-46. 2016.Equity is clearly central to Hobbes’s theory of the laws of nature, and it has an important place in his doctrine of the duties and exercise of sovereignty. It is also prominent in his general theory of law, especially as it is articulated in the late Dialogue between a Philosopher and a Student of the Common Laws of England. Still, it is not more central to Hobbes’s ethics, politics and legal philosophy than his concept of justice, or even as central. On the contrary, his theory of justice is p…Read more
University of Oxford
DPhil, 1978
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
History of Western Philosophy |
Metaphysics and Epistemology |
Other Academic Areas |