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58On the irreducibility of the willSynthese 86 (3). 1991.This paper criticizes the thesis that intending to do something is reducible to some combination of beliefs and desires. Against Audi's recent formulation of such a view I offer as counterexample a case wherein an agent who wants and expects to V has not yet decided whether to V and hence does not yet intend to. I try to show that whereas belief that one will V is not necessary for intending to V, as illustrated in cases of desperate attempts to V, one cannot intend to V without preferring to V …Read more
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12On consequence dependenceAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 67 (2). 1989.This Article does not have an abstract
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21Methods and Findings in the Study of Virtues: HumilityPhilosophia 43 (2): 325-335. 2015.I sketch and respond to Ryan Byerly’s distinction between a Value-Based Approach to assessing proposed accounts of a virtue-here, humility-and what he calls a Counterexample Based Approach. My first section, on method, argues that, though distinct, the two approaches are not mutually exclusive and answer different questions. Engaging his claim that the former approach is superior to the latter, I suggest that we apply Byerly’s own idea that there are different kinds of value to show, contra Byer…Read more
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57Lies and the Vices of Self-DeceptionFaith and Philosophy 15 (4): 514-537. 1998.This essay applies to the morality of lying and other deception a sketch of a kind of virtues-based, input-driven, role-centered, patient-focused, ethical theory. Among the questions treated are: What is wrong with lying? Is it always and intrinsically immoral? Can it be correct, as some have vigorously maintained, that lying is morally wrong in some circumstances where other forms of deliberate dissimulation are not? If so, how can that be? And how can it be that lying to someone is immoral whe…Read more
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26Interpersonal VirtuesProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 71 31-60. 1997.
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178Health versus harm: Euthanasia and physicians' dutiesJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 32 (1). 2007.This essay rebuts Gary Seay's efforts to show that committing euthanasia need not conflict with a physician's professional duties. First, I try to show how his misunderstanding of the correlativity of rights and duties and his discussion of the foundation of moral rights undermine his case. Second, I show aspects of physicians' professional duties that clash with euthanasia, and that attempts to avoid this clash lead to absurdities. For professional duties are best understood as deriving from pr…Read more
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28From Neighbor-Love to Utilitarianism, and BackProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 89 1-32. 2015.Contrasting loving our neighbors with utilitarians’ demand to maximize good reveals important metatheoretic structures and dynamics that I call virtues- basing, input drive, role centering, and patient focus. First, love (good will) is a virtue; such virtues are foundational to both moral obligations and the impersonally valuable. Second, part of loving is acting lovingly. Whether and how I act lovingly, and how loving it is, is a matter of motivation; this input-driven account contrasts with hi…Read more
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176Being unimpressed with ourselves: Reconceiving humilityPhilosophia 34 (4): 417-435. 2006.I first sketch an account of humility as a character trait in which we are unimpressed with our good, envied, or admired features, achievements, etc., where these lack significant salience for our image of ourselves, because of the greater prominence of our limitations and flaws. I situate this view among several other recent conceptions of humility (also called modesty), dividing them between the inward-directed and outward-directed, distinguish mine from them, pose problems for each alternativ…Read more
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89Book ReviewsLawrence Blum,. “I’m Not a Racist, but …”: The Moral Quandary of Race.Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002. Pp. 272. $52.50 ; $19.95 (review)Ethics 118 (2): 332-337. 2008.
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77Anscombe's Three Theses Revisited: Rethinking the Foundations of Medical EthicsChristian Bioethics 14 (2): 123-140. 2008.At the start of her vigorously argued and classic article, “Modern Moral Philosophy,” G. E. M. Anscombe stated three focal theses. First, that philosophers of the time needed to dispense with investigation into talk of what is morally right, wrong; permissible, forbidden, required; and of moral obligation or duty, what we morally ought to do. Second, there was no adequate philosophical psychology then available of the sort needed for doing good moral philosophy. Third, the differences among the …Read more
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20Family of Bistable Attractors Contained in an Unstable Dissipative Switching System Associated to a SNLFComplexity 2018 1-9. 2018.
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41Identity confusionsPhilosophy and Social Criticism 32 (7): 839-862. 2006.This article responds to logical and social theses proposed by Professor José Medina in discussing the relativity of identity. In exploring the metaphor of family resemblance, the author argues that its causal mechanism is biological, not social; particular features of being a woman, or of belonging to a racial or ethnic group, cannot be reduced to social constructions. The article skeptically discusses the supposed importance of sex, race, and ethnicity to a person’s individual identity, and su…Read more
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62Sin and Suffering in a Catholic Understanding of Medical EthicsChristian Bioethics 12 (2): 165-186. 2006.Drawing chiefly on recent sources, in Part One I sketch an untraditional way of articulating what I claim to be central elements of traditional Catholic morality, treating it as based in virtues, focused on the recipients (“patients”) of our attention and concern, and centered in certain person-to-person role-relationships. I show the limited and derivative places of “natural law,” and therefore of sin, within that framework. I also sketch out some possible implications for medical ethics of thi…Read more
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186The Problem of Endless Joy: Is Infinite Utility Too Much for Utilitarianism?Utilitas 6 (2): 183-192. 1994.What if human joy went on endlessly? Suppose, for example, that each human generation were followed by another, or that the Western religions are right when they teach that each human being lives eternally after death. If any such possibility is true in the actual world, then an agent might sometimes be so situated that more than one course of action would produce an infinite amount of utility. Deciding whether to have a child born this year rather than next is a situation wherein an agent may f…Read more
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59A Volitional Account of Racist Beliefs, Contamination, and ObjectsProceedings of the American Catholic Philosophical Association 92 59-85. 2018.Prof. Alberto Urquidez, in an important recent article that appears in different form in his book, Redefining Racism, offers an informed, sustained, careful, multi-pronged, and sometimes original critique of the volitional analysis of racism, which I have proposed in a series of articles over the past two dozen years. Here I expand and improve VAR’s analysis of paternalistic racists and their beliefs, clarify its ‘infection’-model’s explanation of racism’s spread and variety, and lay out what it…Read more
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116Race as a Social ConstructionThe Harvard Review of Philosophy 26 115-133. 2019.This paper raises serious problems for the commonly held claim that races are socially constructed. The first section sketches out an approach to our construction of institutional phenomena that, taking Searle’s general approach, restricts social construction proper to cases where we adopt rules that bind relevant parties to treat things of a type in certain ways, thus constituting important roles in, and parts of, our social lives. I argue this conception, construction-by-rules, helps distingui…Read more
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115. Are Some People Better Off Dead? A ReflectionLogos. Anales Del Seminario de Metafísica [Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España] 2 (1). 1999.
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22. Death of the (Hand)maiden: Contemporary Philosophy in Faith and ReasonLogos. Anales Del Seminario de Metafísica [Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España] 2 (3). 1999.
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68. A Note on Religious Assent and DissentLogos. Anales Del Seminario de Metafísica [Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España] 4 (2). 2001.
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165. White Nights of the Soul: Chritopher Nolan's Insomnia and the Renewal of Moral Reflection in FilmLogos. Anales Del Seminario de Metafísica [Universidad Complutense de Madrid, España] 9 (4). 2006.
Areas of Interest
19th Century Philosophy |
20th Century Philosophy |