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47Critical Notice (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (3): 443-459. 2004.In this exceptional new book, Jeff McMahan sets out to provide such an account. Along the way, he offers nuanced and illuminating accounts of personal identity, human nature, the badness of death, the wrongness of killing, the rights of animals, abortion, and euthanasia. This book is a major contribution to both moral theory and applied ethics, and makes a strong case for the relevance of the former to the latter. It is also beautifully written and a joy to read.
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336The demands of consequentialismOxford University Press. 2001.Tim Mulgan presents a penetrating examination of consequentialism: the theory that human behavior must be judged in terms of the goodness or badness of its consequences. The problem with consequentialism is that it seems unreasonably demanding, leaving us no room for our own aims and interests. In response, Mulgan offers his own, more practical version of consequentialism--one that will surely appeal to philosophers and laypersons alike.
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17Replies to CriticsPhilosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche. 2014.Download
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30Ethics: Twelve Lectures on the Philosophy of Morality - by David WigginsPhilosophical Books 48 (4): 373-376. 2007.
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182Future people: a moderate consequentialist account of our obligations to future generationsOxford University Press. 2006.What do we owe to our descendants? How do we balance their needs against our own? Tim Mulgan develops a new theory of our obligations to future generations, based on a new rule-consequentialist account of the morality of individual reproduction. He also brings together several different contemporary philosophical discussions, including the demands of morality and international justice. His aim is to produce a coherent, intuitively plausible moral theory that is not unreasonably demanding, even w…Read more
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106Answering to Future People: Responsibility for Climate Change in a Breaking WorldJournal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2). 2017.Our everyday notions of responsibility are often driven by our need to justify ourselves to specific others – especially those we harm, wrong, or otherwise affect. One challenge for contemporary ethics is to extend this interpersonal urgency to our relations with those future people who are harmed or affected by our actions. In this article, I explore our responsibility for climate change by imagining a possible ‘broken future’, damaged by the carbon emissions of previous generations, and then a…Read more
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36Teaching Future GenerationsTeaching Philosophy 22 (3): 259-273. 1999.An introductory ethics course serves many and often disparate ends, so much so that it may be difficult to find a theme or question that can tie these ends together in a coherent course narrative. This paper shares the author’s attempt to do so. In addition to high student interest in the subject, the topic of our obligation to future generations has the advantage of naturally leading a course through several systematic areas of philosophical importance. This topic lends itself not only to moral…Read more
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93Review: Christopher Woodard: Reasons, Patterns, and Cooperation (review)Mind 118 (470): 539-542. 2009.
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21The Non-Identity ProblemIn Heather Dyke (ed.), Time and Ethics: Essays at the Intersection, Kluwer Academic Publishers. pp. 209--218. 2003.
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Teoria etica e intuizioni in un mondo in frantumi [Theory and Intuition in a Broken World]la Società Degli Individui 39. 2010.Il cambiamento climatico presenta caratteristiche inedite che mettono in di- scussione il pensiero morale cui siamo abituati. In questo saggio, si rico- struiscono le modifiche che sarebbero necessarie per pensare le questioni morali poste dalla prospettiva di un mondo che subisca gli effetti del cam- biamento climatico: si potrebbe trattare di un mondo in frantumi, dove non ci sono più le condizioni minime di benessere, e le nozioni cui siamo abi- tuati – come certi diritti o l'ideale dell'egua…Read more
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61Reply to John turriInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 13 (4). 2005.This Article does not have an abstract
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31Purpose in the Universe: The Moral and Metaphysical Case for Ananthropocentric PurposivismOxford University Press UK. 2015.Two familiar worldviews dominate Western philosophy: materialist atheism and the benevolent God of the Abrahamic faiths. Tim Mulgan explores a third way. Ananthropocentric Purposivism claims that there is a cosmic purpose, but human beings are irrelevant to it. Purpose in the Universe develops a philosophical case for Ananthropocentric Purposivism that it is at least as strong as the case for either theism or atheism. He draws on a range of secular and religious ethical traditions to conclude th…Read more
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108Liam Murphy, Moral Demands in Nonideal Theory, New York, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. viii + 168Utilitas 15 (1): 113. 2003.
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151How Satisficers Get Away with MurderInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 9 (1). 2001.Traditional Consequentialism is based on a demanding principle of impartial maximization. Michael Slote's 'Satisficing Consequentialism' aims to reduce the demands of Consequentialism, by no longer requiring us to bring about the best possible outcome. This paper presents a new objection to Satisficing Consequentialism. We begin with a simple thought experiment, in which an agent must choose whether to save the lives of ten innocent people by using a sand bag or by killing an innocent person. Th…Read more
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106Utilitarianism for a Broken WorldUtilitas 27 (1): 92-114. 2015.Drawing on the author's recent bookEthics for a Broken World, this article explores the philosophical implications of the fact that climate change – or something like it – might lead to abroken worldwhere resources are insufficient to meet everyone's basic needs, and where our affluent way of life is no longer an option. It argues that the broken world has an impact, not only on applied ethics, but also on moral theory. It then explores that impact. The article first argues that the broken world…Read more
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176The Future of UtilitarianismIn James Maclaurin (ed.), Rationis Defensor, . 2012.Climate change has obvious practical implications. It will kill millions of people, wipe out thousands of species, and so on. My question in this paper is much narrower. How might climate change impact on moral theory – and especially on the debate between utilitarians and their non-utilitarian rivals? I argue that climate change creates serious theoretical difficulties for non-utilitarian moral theories – especially those that based morality or justice on any contract or bargain for reciprocal …Read more
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150Slote's Satisficing ConsequentialismRatio 6 (2). 1993.The article discusses Michael Slote's Satisficing Consequentialism, which is the view that moral agents are not required to maximise the good, but merely to produce a sufficient amount of good. It is argued that Satisficing Consequentialism is not an acceptable alternative to Maximising Consequentialism. In particular, it is argued that Satisficing Consequentialism cannot be less demanding in practice than Maximising Consequentialism without also endorsing a wide range of clearly unacceptable ac…Read more
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41Neutrality, rebirth and intergenerational justiceJournal of Applied Philosophy 19 (1). 2002.A basic feature of liberal political philosophy is its commitment to religious neut‐rality. Contemporary philosophical discussion of intergenerational justice violates this com‐mitment, as it proceeds on the basis of controversial metaphysical assumptions. The Contractualist notion of a power imbalance between generations and Derek Parfit’s non‐identity claims both presuppose that humans are not reborn. Yet belief in rebirth underlies Hindu and Buddhist traditions espoused by millions throughout…Read more
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17A Précis to Ethics for a Broken WorldPhilosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche. 2014.Download
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30Ethics for a Broken World: Imagining Philosophy After CatastropheRoutledge. 2011.Imagine living in the future in a world already damaged by humankind, a world where resources are insufficient to meet everyone's basic needs and where a chaotic climate makes life precarious. Then imagine looking back into the past, back to our own time and assessing the ethics of the early twenty-first century. "Ethics for a Broken World" imagines how the future might judge us and how living in a time of global environmental degradation might utterly reshape the politics and ethics of the futu…Read more