-
29On what is the war on terror?In Timothy Shanahan (ed.), Human Rights Review, Open Court. pp. 48-60. 2005.
-
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.
-
421Motives 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
-
26Fiduciary 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
-
122An 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
-
65Belief 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
-
36Chapter 1. Special Relationships and Special ReasonsIn Partiality, Princeton University Press. pp. 1-30. 2013.
-
32Fiduciary 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
-
14Chapter 5. My Response to Your ValueIn Partiality, Princeton University Press. pp. 113-156. 2013.
-
40Comments on George Schedler, "Should Peter Singer Become an Ethical Meat Eater?"Southwest Philosophy Review 21 (2): 159-162. 2005.
-
51Against Friendship between CountriesJournal of International Political Theory 5 (1): 59-74. 2009.The idea that countries (or nations or peoples) should sometimes be friends is embedded in everyday talk about international relations and receives sophisticated defences in recent works by P. E. Digeser and Catherine Lu. The idea relies upon an analogy between interactions between persons and interactions between countries — an analogy that this article argues to be ontologically and ethically dubious. Persons and countries are very different entities, meriting very different kinds of treatment…Read more