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471Overriding Adolescent Refusals of TreatmentJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 20 (3): 221-247. 2021.Adolescents are routinely treated differently to adults, even when they possess similar capacities. In this article, we explore the justification for one case of differential treatment of adolescents. We attempt to make philosophical sense of the concurrent consents doctrine in law: adolescents found to have decision-making capacity have the power to consent to—and thereby, all else being equal, permit—their own medical treatment, but they lack the power always to refuse treatment and so render …Read more
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430Review of Bart Schultz, Henry Sidgwick, Eye of the Universe: An Intellectual Biography (review)Philosophy in Review 25 (3): 231-234. 2005.A critical review of Bart Schultz, Henry Sidgwick, Eye of the Universe
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422Introduction to the Symposium on The Most Good You Can DoJournal of Global Ethics 12 (2): 127-131. 2016.This is the introduction to the Journal of Global Ethics symposium on Peter Singer's The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically. It summarizes the main features of effective altruism in the context of Singer's work on the moral demands of global poverty and some recent criticisms of effective altruism. The symposium contains contributions by Anthony Skelton, Violetta Igneski, Tracy Isaacs and Peter Singer.
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355Should we delay covid-19 vaccination in children?British Medical Journal 374 (8300): 96-97. 2021.The net benefit of vaccinating children is unclear, and vulnerable people worldwide should be prioritised instead, say Dominic Wilkinson, Ilora Finlay, and Andrew J Pollard. But Lisa Forsberg and Anthony Skelton argue that covid-19 vaccines have been approved for some children and that children should not be disadvantaged because of policy choices that impede global vaccination
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346Sidgwick on Free Will and EthicsIn Maximilian Kiener (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Responsibility, Routledge. pp. 82-94. 2023.In The Methods of Ethics, Henry Sidgwick maintains that resolution of the free will problem is of “limited” importance to ethics and to practical reasoning. Despite the view’s uniqueness, surprisingly little sustained attention has been paid to Sidgwick’s view. This chapter tries to remedy this situation. Part one clarifies Sidgwick’s argument for the claim that resolving the free will controversy is of only limited importance to ethics. Part two examines and tries to deflect objections to Sidgw…Read more
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344Review of Roger Crisp, The Cosmos of Duty: Henry Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2016.This is a critical review of Roger Crisp's The Cosmos of Duty. The review praises the book but, among other things, takes issue with some of Crisp's criticisms of Sidgwick's view that resolution of the free will problem is of limited significance to ethics and with Crisp's claim that in Methods III.xiii Sidgwick defends an axiom of prudence that undergirds rational egoism.
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321Review of Glenn McGee (Ed.), Pragmatic Bioethics (review)Philosophy in Review 20 (5): 365-367. 2000.Critical review of Glenn McGee, ed., Pragmatic Bioethics.
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319Review of Andrew Irvine and John Russell (eds.), In the Agora: The Public Face of Canadian Philosophy (review)The University of Toronto Quarterly 80 (1): 244-245. 2011.This is a critical review of In the Agora: The Public Face of Canadian Philosophy. It argues that this book does not adequately represent the public face of Canadian philosophy, though it contains some first-rate contributions.
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316Symposium on David Phillips's Sidgwickian Ethics: IntroductionRevue d'Etudes Benthamiennes 12. 2013.This is a brief introduction to a symposium on David Phillips's Sidgwickian Ethics.
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292Transformative Choice and Decision-Making CapacityLaw Quarterly Review 139 (4): 654-680. 2023.This article is about the information relevant to decision-making capacity in refusal of life-prolonging medical treatment cases. We examine the degree to which the phenomenology of the options available to the agent—what the relevant states of affairs will feel like for them—forms part of the capacity-relevant information in the law of England and Wales, and how this informational basis varies across adolescent and adult medical treatment cases. We identify an important doctrinal phenomenon. In…Read more
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257Review of David Phillips, Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics: A Guide (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2022.This is a review of David Phillips, Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics: A Guide.
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229Henry Sidgwick's Practical Ethics: A DefenseUtilitas 18 (3): 199-217. 2006.Henry Sidgwick's Practical Ethics offers a novel approach to practical moral issues. In this article, I defend Sidgwick's approach against recent objections advanced by Sissela Bok, Karen Hanson, Michael S. Pritchard, and Michael Davis. In the first section, I provide some context within which to situate Sidgwick's view. In the second, I outline the main features of Sidgwick's methodology and the powerful rationale that lies behind it. I emphasize elements of the view that help to defend it, not…Read more
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226Hierarchy and Heterarchy in Ross's Theories of the Right and the GoodIn Robert Audi & David Phillips (eds.), The Moral Philosophy of W. D. Ross, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.In both The Right and the Good and The Foundations of Ethics, W. D. Ross maintains that any amount of the non-instrumental value of virtue outweighs any amount of the non-instrumental value of pleasure or avoidance of pain. The chapter raises two challenges to the status that Ross accords the value of virtue relative to the value of pleasure (pain). First, it argues that Ross fails to provide a good argument for thinking that virtue is always better than pleasure and that it is in any case impl…Read more
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211Children's Prudential ValueIn Christopher Wareham (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing, Cambridge University Press. pp. 38-53. 2022.Until recently, the nature of children’s well-being or prudential value remained all but unexplored in the literature on well-being. There now exists a small but growing body of work on the topic. In this chapter, I focus on a cluster of under-explored issues relating to children’s well-being. I investigate, in specific, three distinct (and to my mind puzzling) positions about it, namely, that children’s lives cannot on the whole go well or poorly for them, prudentially speaking; that the prude…Read more
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130Review of Anthony Appiah, Experiments in Ethics (review)Globe and Mail. 2008.A review of Anthony Appiah's Experiments in Ethics.
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125Sidgwick's Philosophical IntuitionsEtica & Politica / Ethics & Politics 10 (2): 185-209. 2008.Sidgwick famously claimed that an argument in favour of utilitarianism might be provided by demonstrating that a set of defensible philosophical intuitions undergird it. This paper focuses on those philosophical intuitions. It aims to show which specific intuitions Sidgwick endorsed, and to shed light on their mutual connections. It argues against many rival interpretations that Sidgwick maintained that six philosophical intuitions constitute the self-evident grounds for utilitarianism, and that…Read more
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117William David RossStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.Presents and argues for a novel interpretation of Ross's distinctive contribution to moral theory and meta-ethics.
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116Schultz's SidgwickUtilitas 19 (1): 91-103. 2007.Bart Schultz’s Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe is a welcome addition to the growing literature on Sidgwick. In this article, I direct my attention for the most part to one aspect of what Schultz says about Sidgwick’s masterpiece, The Methods of Ethics, as well as to what he does not say about Sidgwick’s illuminating but neglected work Practical Ethics. This article is divided into three sections. In the first, I argue that there is a problem with Schultz’s endorsement of the view that Sidgwi…Read more
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82Review of Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save (review)The Globe and Mail. 2009.This is a review of Peter Singer The Life You Can Save. The author argues that the book is excellent and sees Singer at his best
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78Review of R. M. Hare, Sorting out Ethics (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (4): 583-585. 2001.This is a short review of R.M. Hare's Sorting Out Ethics. It critically evaluates Hare's universal prescriptivism.
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59Review of Dale Jamieson (Ed.), Singer and his Critics (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (4). 2001.This is a review of Singer and His Critics edited by Dale Jamieson. It argues that the volume is important. The essay by Colin McGinn is heavily criticized.
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47Review of Bart Schultz and Georgios Varouxakis (Eds.) Utilitarianism and Empire (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (7). 2006.This is a review of Utilitarianism and Empire edited by Schultz and Varouxakis. It expresses admiration for the volume, especially the essays by Pitts and Rosen.
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2Review of David Heyd (Ed.), Toleration: An Elusive Virtue (review)Philosophy in Review 18 (3): 180-182. 1998.
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