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62Hume's Definition of Miracles RevisedAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 36 (1). 1999.It is argued that Hume’s definition of miracle stands in need of revision because it fails to be inclusive of acts of supernatural intervention in the world which are non-law-violating. Potential revisions of the definition, due to Paul Dietl and Christopher Hughes are considered and found to be inadequate, and a new definition is put forward; a miracle is "an intended outcome of an intervention in the natural world by a supernatural agent." An objection to this definition is anticipated and a d…Read more
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34Conscientious objection in healthcare, referral and the military analogyJournal of Medical Ethics 43 (4): 218-221. 2017.An analogy is sometimes drawn between the proper treatment of conscientious objectors in healthcare and in military contexts. In this paper, I consider an aspect of this analogy that has not, to my knowledge, been considered in debates about conscientious objection in healthcare. In the USA and elsewhere, tribunals have been tasked with the responsibility of recommending particular forms of alternative service for conscientious objectors. Military conscripts who have a conscientious objection to…Read more
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150The Duty to Disclose Adverse Clinical Trial ResultsAmerican Journal of Bioethics 9 (8): 24-32. 2009.Participants in some clinical trials are at risk of being harmed and sometimes are seriously harmed as a result of not being provided with available, relevant risk information. We argue that this situation is unacceptable and that there is a moral duty to disclose all adverse clinical trial results to participants in clinical trials. This duty is grounded in the human right not to be placed at risk of harm without informed consent. We consider objections to disclosure grounded in considerations …Read more
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39Response to Mumford and another definition of miraclesReligious Studies 39 (4): 459-463. 2003.Stephen Mumford concludes a recent paper in Religious Studies, in which he advances a new causation-based analysis of miracles, by stating that the onus is ‘on rival accounts of miracles to produce something that matches it’. I take up Mumford 's challenge, defending an intention-based definition of miracles, which I developed earlier, that he criticizes. I argue that this definition of miracles is more consistent with ordinary intuitions about miracles than Mumford 's causation-based alternativ…Read more
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61Introducing Transformative Technologies into Democratic SocietiesPhilosophy and Technology 25 (1): 27-45. 2012.Transformative technologies can radically alter human lives making us stronger, faster, more resistant to disease and so on. These include enhancement technologies as well as cloning and stem cell research. Such technologies are often approved of by many liberals who see them as offering us opportunities to lead better lives, but are often disapproved of by conservatives who worry about the many consequences of allowing these to be used. In this paper, we consider how a democratic government wit…Read more
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581Defensible territory for entity realismBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 52 (4): 701-722. 2001.In the face of argument to the contrary, it is shown that there is defensible middle ground available for entity realism, between the extremes of scientific realism and empiricist antirealism. Cartwright's ([1983]) earlier argument for defensible middle ground between these extremes, which depended crucially on the viability of an underdeveloped distinction between inference to the best explanation (IBE) and inference to the most probable cause (IPC), is examined and its defects are identified. …Read more
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50The Justification of Religious ViolenceWiley-Blackwell. 2014.How are justifications for religious violence developed and dothey differ from secular justifications for violence? Can liberalsocieties tolerate potentially violent religious groups? Can thosewho accept religious justifications for violence be dissuaded fromacting violently? Including six in-depth contemporary case studies,The Justification of Religious Violence is the first book toexamine the logical structure of justifications of religiousviolence. The first book specifically devoted to exami…Read more
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76The supernatural and the miraculousSophia 46 (3). 2007.Both intention-based and causation-based definitions of the miraculous make reference to the term ‘supernatural’. Philosophers who define the miraculous appear to use this term in a loose way, perhaps meaning the nonnatural, perhaps meaning a subcategory of the nonnatural. Here I examine the aetiology of the term ‘supernatural’. I consider three outstanding issues regarding the meaning of the term and conclude that the supernatural is best understood as a subcategory of the nonnatural. In light …Read more
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138Naturalism, science and the supernaturalSophia 48 (2): 127-142. 2009.There is overwhelming agreement amongst naturalists that a naturalistic ontology should not allow for the possibility of supernatural entities. I argue, against this prevailing consensus, that naturalists have no proper basis to oppose the existence of supernatural entities. Naturalism is characterized, following Leiter and Rea, as a position which involves a primary commitment to scientific methodology and it is argued that any naturalistic ontological commitments must be compatible with this p…Read more
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40Informed consent and surgeons' performanceJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 29 (1). 2004.This paper argues that the provision of effective informed consent by surgical patients requires the disclosure of material information about the comparative clinical performance of available surgeons. We develop a new ethical argument for the conclusion that comparative information about surgeons' performance - surgeons' report cards - should be provided to patients, a conclusion that has already been supported by legal and economic arguments. We consider some recent institutional and legal dev…Read more
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19Conscientious objection in healthcare: new directionsJournal of Medical Ethics 43 (4): 191-191. 2017.Conscientious objection was barely mentioned in debates about the ethics of healthcare provision before the 1970s.1 The conscientious objections that attracted public and academic attention were those of conscripts who objected to participation in military forces, and of parents who objected to the vaccination of their children. All of this was changed by the 1973 US Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade, which established a constitutional right to abortion in the USA. Shortly after this decision, …Read more
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154Religion as an Evolutionary Byproduct: A Critique of the Standard ModelBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 63 (3): 457-486. 2012.The dominant view in the cognitive science of religion (the ‘Standard Model’) is that religious belief and behaviour are not adaptive traits but rather incidental byproducts of the cognitive architecture of mind. Because evidence for the Standard Model is inconclusive, the case for it depends crucially on its alleged methodological superiority to selectionist alternatives. However, we show that the Standard Model has both methodological and evidential disadvantages when compared with selectionis…Read more
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43The lies remain the same: A reply to ChalmersAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 73 (1). 1995.In her 1983 work How the Laws of Phyiscs Lie [1] Nancy Cartwright argued for antirealism about fundamental laws alongside realism about phenomenological laws. Her position was considerably altered by 1989 when, in Nature's Capacities and Their Measurement [2], she argued for a realist construal of capacities (close relations of Powers, natures, tendencies, propensities and disptısitions), which she took fundamental laws to be about. Most realists about capaeities, and their ilk, are realist abou…Read more
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39Justifying deception in social science researchJournal of Applied Philosophy 16 (2). 1999.The use of deceptive techniques is common in social science research. It is argued that the use of such techniques is incompatible with the standard of informed consent, which is widely employed in the ethical evaluation of research involving human subjects. A number of proposals to justify the use of deceptions in social science research are examined, in the face of its apparent incompatibility with the standard of informed consent, and found to be inadequate. An alternative method of justifica…Read more
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2Coercion, consequence and salvationIn Yujin Nagasawa (ed.), Scientific Approaches to the Philosophy of Religion, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 205. 2012.
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75When to Believe in MiraclesAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 34 (1). 1997.Brierley et al argue that in cases where it is medically futile to continue providing life-sustaining therapies to children in intensive care, medical professionals should be allowed to withdraw such therapies, even when the parents of these children believe that there is a chance of a miracle cure taking place. In reasoning this way, Brierley et al appear to implicitly assume that miracle cures will never take place, but they do not justify this assumption and it would be very difficult for the…Read more
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University of OxfordWellcome Centre for Ethics and Humanities, St Cross College
Faculty of PhilosophyResearcher
Oxford, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Religion |
General Philosophy of Science |
Biomedical Ethics |
Applied Ethics |
Technology Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Philosophy of Social Science |
Medical Ethics |
Biomedical Ethics |