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1568Utilitarian Practical Ethics: Sidgwick and SingerIn Placido Bucolo, Roger Crisp & Bart Schultz (eds.), Henry Sidgwick: Ethics, Psychics, and Politics, Catania: University of Catania Press. 2011.It is often argued that Henry Sidgwick is a conservative about moral matters, while Peter Singer is a radical. Both are exponents of a utilitarian account of morality but they use it to very different effect. I think this way of viewing the two is mistaken or, at the very least, overstated. Sidgwick is less conservative than has been suggested and Singer is less radical than he initially seems. To illustrate my point, I will rely on what each has to say about the moral demands of suffering and d…Read more
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933Ideal UtilitarianismIn J. E. Crimmins & D. C. Long (eds.), Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism, Bloomsbury Academic. 2013.An opinionated encyclopedia entry on ideal utilitarianism in which various arguments for the view are discussed and evaluated.
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711Ross, William David (1877-1971)In James Crimmins (ed.), Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism, Bloomsbury Academic. 2013.A short encyclopedia article devoted to W. D. Ross.
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1153Singer, Peter (1946-)In Michael Gibbons (ed.), Encyclopedia of Political Thought, Wiley-blackwell. pp. 3454-3455. 2014.A short encyclopedia article on Peter Singer which discusses his views on the obligations that the global wealthy have to the global poor and on our obligations to non-human animals.
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996Children's Well-Being: A Philosophical AnalysisIn Guy Fletcher (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Well-Being, Routledge. pp. 366-377. 2015.A philosophical discussion of children's well-being in which various existing views of well-being are discussed to determine their implications for children's well-being and a variety of views of children's well-being are considered and evaluated.
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1221Review of Terence Irwin, The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study. Volume III: From Kant To Rawls (review)Philosophical Review 124 (2): 279-286. 2015.This is a critical review of Terence Irwin's The Development of Ethics: A Historical and Critical Study. Volume III: From Kant to Rawls. Among other things, the review remarks on the book's treatment of utilitarianism and on its lack of discussion of work in feminist ethics in the twentieth century.
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1781Rashdall, Hastings (1858-1924)In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. pp. 4325-4329. 2013.An opinionated encyclopedia entry on Hastings Rashdall, in which several worries about his case for ideal utilitarianism are raised.
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342Review 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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313Symposium 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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8418Ideal Utilitarianism: Rashdall and MooreIn Thomas Hurka (ed.), Underivative duty: British moral philosophers from Sidgwick to Ewing, Oxford University Press. pp. 45-65. 2011.Ideal utilitarianism states that the only fundamental requirement of morality is to promote a plurality of intrinsic goods. This paper critically evaluates Hastings Rashdall’s arguments for ideal utilitarianism, while comparing them with G. E. Moore’s arguments. Section I outlines Rashdall’s ethical outlook. Section II considers two different arguments that he provides for its theory of rightness. Section III discusses his defence of a pluralist theory of value. Section IV argues that Rashdall m…Read more
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115William 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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740On Henry Sidgwick’s “My Station and Its Duties”Ethics 125 (1): 586-591. 2014.This is a retrospective essay on Henry Sidgwick's "My Station and Its Duties" written to mark the 125th anniversary of Ethics. It engages with Sidgwick's remarks on the kind of ethical expertise that the moral philosopher possesses and on his approach to practical ethics generally.
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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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807Sidgwick’s Argument for Utilitarianism and his Moral Epistemology: A Reply to David PhillipsRevue d'Etudes Benthamiennes 12. 2013.David Phillips’s Sidgwickian Ethics is a penetrating contribution to the scholarly and philosophical understanding of Henry Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics. This note focuses on Phillips’s understanding of (aspects of) Sidgwick’s argument for utilitarianism and the moral epistemology to which he subscribes. In § I, I briefly outline the basic features of the argument that Sidgwick provides for utilitarianism, noting some disagreements with Phillips along the way. In § II, I raise some objection…Read more
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1510E. F. Carritt (1876-1964)In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.E. F. Carritt (1876-1964) was educated at and taught in Oxford University. He made substantial contributions both to aesthetics and to moral philosophy. The focus of this entry is his work in moral philosophy. His most notable works in this field are The Theory of Morals (1928) and Ethical and Political Thinking (1947). Carritt developed views in metaethics and in normative ethics. In meta-ethics he defends a cognitivist, non-naturalist moral realism and was among the first to respond to A. J. A…Read more
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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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676Henry Sidgwick, 1838-1900In J. Mander & A. P. F. Sell (eds.), The Dictionary of Nineteenth-Century British Philosophers, Thoemmes Press. 2002.Dictionary entry written on Henry Sidgwick, which surveys the main features of his moral framework.
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2437The Ethical Principles of Effective AltruismJournal of Global Ethics 12 (2): 137-146. 2016.This paper is an examination of the ethical principles of effective altruism as they are articulated by Peter Singer in his book The Most Good You Can Do. It discusses the nature and the plausibility of the principles that he thinks both guide and ought to guide effective altruists. It argues in § II pace Singer that it is unclear that in charitable giving one ought always to aim to produce the most surplus benefit possible and in § III that there is a more attractive set of principles than the …Read more
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1610Griffin, James (1933-)In James Crimmins (ed.), Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism, Bloomsbury. pp. 186-188. 2013.Dictionary entry discussing the main moral and meta-ethical doctrines found in the works of James Griffin.
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417Introduction 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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46Review 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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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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470Review of David Phillips, Sidgwickian Ethics (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 12 (6): 794-797. 2015.This is a critical review of David Phillips's Sidgwickian Ethics. The book deserves high praise.
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1404Henry Sidgwick’s Moral EpistemologyJournal of the History of Philosophy 48 (4): 491-519. 2010.In this essay I defend the view that Henry Sidgwick’s moral epistemology is a form of intuitionist foundationalism that grants common-sense morality no evidentiary role. In §1, I outline both the problematic of The Methods of Ethics and the main elements of its argument for utilitarianism. In §§2-4 I provide my interpretation of Sidgwick’s moral epistemology. In §§ 5-8 I refute rival interpretations, including the Rawlsian view that Sidgwick endorses some version of reflective equilibrium and th…Read more
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614The Good in the Right (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 37 (2): 305-325. 2007.Critical notice of Robert Audi's The Good in the Right in which doubts are raised about the epistemological and ethical doctrines it defends. It doubts that an appeal to Kant is a profitable way to defend Rossian normative intuitionism.
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