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64Persons as Goods: Response to Patrick LeeChristian Bioethics 10 (1): 69-78. 2004.Developing a British perspective on the abortion debate, I take up some ideas from Patrick Lee’s fine paper, and pursue, in particular, the idea of individual humans as goods in themselves. I argue that this notion helps us to avoid the familiar mistake of making moral value impersonal. It also shows us the way out of consequentialism. Since the most philosophically viable notion of the person, the individual human, is (as Lee argues) a notion of an individual substance that is there from concep…Read more
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64Does Protagoras refute himself?Classical Quarterly 45 (02): 333-. 1995.Protagoras believes that all beliefs are true. Since Protagoras' belief that all beliefs are true is itself a belief, it follows from Protagoras' belief that all beliefs are true that Protagoras' belief is true. But what about the belief that Protagoras' belief is false? Doesn't it follow, by parallel reasoning and not at all trivially, that if all beliefs are true and there is a belief that Protagoras' belief is false, then Protagoras' belief is false?
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63The implications of incommensurabilityPhilosophy 76 (1): 137-148. 2001.Agents have aims. Any aim can be either simple or complex. If an aim is complex, then its different components make irreducibly different demands on the agent. The agent cannot rationally respond to all these demands by promoting all her different component aims at once. She must recognise a distinction between the rational response to any component aim of promoting it, and the rational response of respecting it. If the goods are incommensurable, then rational agents have complex aims. So if the…Read more
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61“A logos that increases itself”: response to BurleyPhilosophy 85 (1): 105-108. 2010.Mikel Burley says that he thinks that the Makropoulos debate can make no sense unless talk about eternal life makes sense. Here is his most striking argument that it doesn't – that immortality is inconceivable: …the concepts [of birth, death, and sexual relations] are internally related to the concept of a human being in the sense that they form part of the complex system of interrelated concepts of which ‘human being’ is a member. To understand what a human being is, and hence to be able to ope…Read more
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60Understanding Human GoodsIn Patrick Riordan (ed.), Values in Public Life, Lit Verlag. pp. 77-96. 2007.
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56The relevance of metaphysics to bioethics: A reply to Earl ConeeMind 109 (434): 275-279. 2000.We shall find that the metaphysical views offered on behalf of moral conclusions about abortion do nothing in defence of those conclusions. Other disputable assumptions separate each moral conclusion from the invoked metaphysical view. It is the defensibility of the other assumptions that is crucial. No metaphysical view cited on behalf of a moral conclusion substantially advances the argument in favour of the conclusion.
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49Eudaimonia, Happiness, and the Redemption of UnhappinessPhilosophical Topics 41 (1): 27-52. 2013.In this paper I argue for five theses. The first thesis is that ethicists should think about happiness and unhappiness together, with as much detail and particularity as possible. Thinking about unhappiness will help us get clear about happiness, and distinguish the different things that come under that name. The second is that happiness and unhappiness can both be important positively valuable features of a worthwhile life. The third thesis is that Modern Eudaimonism, the claim that every reaso…Read more
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47Knowledge and Truth in Plato: Stepping Past the Shadow of Socrates, by Catherine RowettMind 129 (513): 291-299. 2020.Knowledge and Truth in Plato: Stepping Past the Shadow of Socrates, by RowettCatherine. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018. Pp. 305.
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45Glory in Sport (and Elsewhere)Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 73 99-128. 2013.There is a gap between what we think about ethics, and what we think we think about ethics. This gap appears when elements of our ethical reflection and our moral theories contradict each other, or otherwise come into logical tension. It also appears when something that is important in our ethical reflection is sidelined, or simply ignored, in our moral theories. The gap appears in both ways with an ethical idea that I shall label glory . This paper's exploration of the idea of glory, and its pl…Read more
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41Cora Diamond: Reading Wittgenstein with Anscombe, Going On to EthicsEthics 130 (4): 588-608. 2020.
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39Moral Conscience Through The Ages by Richard Sorabji Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. 288, £22.50 ISBN: 978-0-19-968554-7 (review)Philosophy 91 (2): 290-303. 2016.
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39Epiphanies: An Ethics of ExperienceOxford University Press. 2022.Epiphanies is a philosophical exploration of epiphanies, peak experiences, 'wow moments', or ecstasies as they are sometimes called. What are epiphanies, and why do so many people so frequently experience them? Are they just transient phenomena in our brains, or are they the revelations of objective value that they very often seem to be? What do they tell us about the world, and about ourselves? How, if at all, do epiphanies fit in with our moral systems and our theories of how to live? And how …Read more
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38Enjoyment: The Moral Significance of Styles of Life, by John KekesMind 121 (483): 831-835. 2012.
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36Book Review. Self-Constitution: Agency, Identity, and Integrity. By Christine M. Korsgaard (review)Philosophy 85 (3): 425-432. 2010.
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36Knowing What to Do: Imagination, Virtue, and Platonism in EthicsOxford University Press. 2017.Sophie Grace Chappell develops a picture of what philosophical ethics can be like, once set aside from the idealising and reductive pressures of conventional moral theory. Her question is 'How are we to know what to do?', and the answer she defends is 'By developing our moral imaginations'.
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36PaulHorwich, Wittgenstein's Metaphilosophy (Oxford University Press, 2012). 225 pp., price £46.00 (review)Philosophical Investigations 37 (3): 258-271. 2014.
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35‘Impartial benevolence and partial love’ contributes, like the other essays in the edited collection ‘The Problem of Moral Demandingness’, to the discussion of that problem. Its contribution is to offer a phenomenological exploration of the place that these two ideas/ ideals actually have in our ethical life and experience. On the basis of this exploration I argue that neither ideal, neither impartial benevolence nor partial love, comprehensively “trumps” the other — both are important, and more…Read more
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33Ethics Beyond the Limits: New Essays on Bernard Williams' Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy (edited book)Routledge. 2018.Bernard Williams' Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy is widely regarded as one of the most important works of moral philosophy in the last fifty years. In this outstanding collection of new essays, fourteen internationally-recognised philosophers examine the enduring contribution that Williams's book continues to make to ethics. Required.
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33The Future-Person StandpointPhilosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche. 2014.Download
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31Reflections on How We Live, by AnnetteBaier. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010, ix + 275 pp. ISBN 978‐0‐19‐957036‐2 hb £26.00 (review)European Journal of Philosophy 20 (3): 502-507. 2012.
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29To Live Outside the Law You Must Be HonestAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 95 (1): 233-252. 2021.Elizabeth Swann: Wait! You have to take me to shore.According to the Code of the Order of the Brethren—
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28Wowbagger has a problem: how to make an infinitely long life meaningful. His answer to this problem is studiedly perverse. Presumably, part of his reason for taking on the project he does is that everyone likes a challenge—and the project of insulting everyone in the universe, in alphabetical order, is really challenging even if you’re immortal. Still, his response to the question ‘How shall I make my life meaningful?’ seems to be not so much an attempt to answer it as to stick two fingers up at…Read more
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Areas of Interest
1 more
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Epistemology |
Philosophy of Mind |
Philosophy of Religion |
Applied Ethics |