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69PartialityPrinceton University Press. 2013.We are partial to people with whom we share special relationships--if someone is your child, parent, or friend, you wouldn't treat them as you would a stranger. But is partiality justified, and if so, why? Partiality presents a theory of the reasons supporting special treatment within special relationships and explores the vexing problem of how we might reconcile the moral value of these relationships with competing claims of impartial morality. Simon Keller explains that in order to understand …Read more
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810Presentism and TruthmakingIn Dean W. Zimmerman (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaphysics, Vol. 1, Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 83-104. 2004.
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27Review of Diane Jeske, Rationality and Moral Theory: How Intimacy Generates Reasons (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (11). 2008.
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2Making nonsense of loyalty to countryIn Boudewijn de Bruin & Christopher F. Zurn (eds.), New waves in political philosophy, Palgrave-macmillan. 2009.
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59Review of Trenton Merricks, Truth and Ontology (review)Philosophical Review 118 (2): 273-276. 2009.
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84Moral Blackmail and the FamilyJournal of Moral Philosophy 13 (6): 699-719. 2016._ Source: _Volume 13, Issue 6, pp 699 - 719 Moral blackmail is a wrongful strategy intended to force a person to perform an act by manipulating her circumstances so as to make it morally wrong for her to do anything else. The idea of moral blackmail can seem paradoxical, but moral blackmail is a coherent and indeed a familiar phenomenon. It has special significance for our intimate personal relationships and is often a force within family dynamics. It is used to enforce power relationships withi…Read more
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30On what is the war on terror?In Timothy Shanahan (ed.), Philosophy 9/11: Thinking About the War on Terrorism, Open Court. pp. 48-60. 2005.
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I restate the view defended in my ‘Patriotism as Bad Faith’, offer a different argument for it, and respond to some objections from Steve Nathanson and Keith Horton.
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437Motives to Assist and Reasons to Assist: the Case of Global PovertyJournal of Practical Ethics 3 (1): 37-63. 2015.The principle of assistance says that the global rich should help the global poor because they are able to do so, and at little cost. The principle of contribution says that the rich should help the poor because the rich are partly to blame for the plight of the poor. This paper explores the relationship between the two principles and offers support for one version of the principle of assistance. The principle of assistance is most plausible, the paper argues, when formulated so as to identify o…Read more
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112Love and the Moral Error Theory: Is Love a Mistake?Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 95 (3): 709-721. 2017.
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68Belief for Someone Else’s SakePhilosophical Topics 46 (1): 19-35. 2018.You care about what others believe about you. What others believe about you determines whether you have a good reputation, whether you have the respect of your peers, and whether your friends genuinely like you. Your caring about others’ beliefs makes sense, because others’ beliefs bear directly upon your level of well-being. Your beliefs can influence others’ well-being, as much as their beliefs can influence yours. How your beliefs influence another’s well-being is a different matter from whet…Read more
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38Chapter 1. Special Relationships and Special ReasonsIn Partiality, Princeton University Press. pp. 1-30. 2013.
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41Fiduciary Duties and Moral BlackmailJournal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2). 2017.In meeting legal or professional fiduciary obligations, a fiduciary can sometimes come to share a special moral relationship with her beneficiary. Special moral relationships produce special moral obligations. Sometimes the obligations faced by a fiduciary as a result of her moral relationship with her beneficiary go beyond the obligations involved in the initial fiduciary relationship. How such moral obligations develop is sometimes under the control of the beneficiary, or of an outside party. …Read more
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31Fiduciary Duties and Moral BlackmailJournal of Applied Philosophy 35 (3): 481-495. 2018.In meeting legal or professional fiduciary obligations, a fiduciary can sometimes come to share a special moral relationship with her beneficiary. Special moral relationships produce special moral obligations. Sometimes the obligations faced by a fiduciary as a result of her moral relationship with her beneficiary go beyond the obligations involved in the initial fiduciary relationship. How such moral obligations develop is sometimes under the control of the beneficiary, or of an outside party. …Read more
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107An Interpretation of Plato's CratylusPhronesis 45 (4): 284-305. 2000.Plato's main concern in the "Cratylus," I claim, is to argue against the idea that we can learn about things by examining their names, and in favour of the claim that philosophers should, so far as possible, look to the things themselves. Other philosophical questions, such as that of whether we should accept a naturalist or a conventionalist theory of namng, arise in the dialogue, but are subordinate. This reading of the "Cratylus," I say, explains certain puzzling facts about the dialogue's st…Read more
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16Chapter 5. My Response to Your ValueIn Partiality, Princeton University Press. pp. 113-156. 2013.
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41Comments on George Schedler, "Should Peter Singer Become an Ethical Meat Eater?"Southwest Philosophy Review 21 (2): 159-162. 2005.