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255Nietzsche's theory of the willPhilosophers' Imprint 7 1-15. 2007.The essay offers a philosophical reconstruction of Nietzsche’s theory of the will, focusing on (1) Nietzsche’s account of the phenomenology of “willing” an action, the experience we have which leads us (causally) to conceive of ourselves as exercising our will; (2) Nietzsche’s arguments that the experiences picked out by the phenomenology are not causally connected to the resulting action (at least not in a way sufficient to underwrite ascriptions of moral responsibility); and (3) Nietzsche’s ac…Read more
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86Why Marxism Still Does Not Need Normative TheoryAnalyse & Kritik 37 (1-2): 23-50. 2015.Marx did not have a normative theory, that is, a theory that purported to justify, discursively and systematically, his normative opinions, to show them to be rationally obligatory or objectively valid. In this regard, Marx was obviously not alone: almost everyone, including those who lead what are widely regarded as exemplary ‘moral’ lives, decide and act on the basis of normative intuitions and inclinations that fall far short of a theory. Yet self-proclaimed Marxists like G. A. Cohen and Jurg…Read more
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44Naturalizing jurisprudence: essays on American legal realism and naturalism in legal philosophyOxford University Press. 2007.Introduction: From legal realism to naturalized jurisprudence -- A note on legal indeterminacy -- Part I. American legal realism and its critics -- Rethinking legal realism: toward a naturalized jurisprudence (1997) -- Legal realism and legal positivism reconsidered (2001) -- Is there an "American" jurisprudence? (1997) -- Postscript to Part I: Interpreting legal realism -- Part II. Ways of naturalizing jurisprudence -- Legal realism, hard positivism, and the limits of conceptual analysis (199…Read more
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I confess to uncertainty about whether Professor Hoekema's reply http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2002/10/hoekema=leiter.html) to my comments on his review of Wilshire http://ndpr.icaap.org/content/archives/2002/10/leiter=hoekema.html) is just careless or intentionally dishonest. It is plainly quite misleading.
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50Legal positivismIn Dennis M. Patterson (ed.), A Companion to Philosophy of Law and Legal Theory, Blackwell. 1996.This chapter contains sections titled: Jurisprudence: Method and Subject Matter Legality and Authority Positivism: Austin vs. Hart The Authority of Law Judicial Discretion Incorporationism and Legality Raz' s Theory of Authority Incorporationism and Authority Conclusion Postscript References.
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67Moralities are a sign-language of the affectsSocial Philosophy and Policy 30 (1-2): 237-258. 2013.This essay offers an interpretation and partial defense of Nietzsche's idea that moralities and moral judgments are “sign-languages” or “symptoms” of our affects, that is, of our emotions or feelings. According to Nietzsche, as I reconstruct his view, moral judgments result from the interaction of two kinds of affective responses: first, a “basic affect” of inclination toward or aversion from certain acts, and then a further affective response to that basic affect. I argue that Nietzsche views b…Read more
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36Review of Christopher Janaway, Beyond Selflessness: Reading Nietzsche's Genealogy (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (6). 2008.
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Law and objectivityIn Jules L. Coleman & Scott Shapiro (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Jurisprudence & Philosophy of Law, Oxford University Press. pp. 969--89. 2002.
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81Shapiro has recently argued that Dworkin posed a new objection to legal positivism in Law's Empire, to which positivists, he says, have not adequately responded. Positivists, the objection goes, have no satisfactory account of what Dworkin calls “theoretical disagreement” about law, that is, disagreement about “the grounds of law” or what positivists would call the criteria of legal validity. I agree with Shapiro that the critique is new, and disagree that it has not been met. Positivism can not…Read more
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77Nietzsche on MoralityRoutledge. 2002/2014.Both an introduction to Nietzsche’s moral philosophy, and a sustained commentary on his most famous work, On the Genealogy of Morality, this book has become the most widely used and debated secondary source on these topics over the past dozen years. Many of Nietzsche’s most famous ideas - the "slave revolt" in morals, the attack on free will, perspectivism, "will to power" and the "ascetic ideal" - are clearly analyzed and explained. The first edition established the centrality of naturalism to …Read more
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The topic this semester will be “methodology,” with special (but not exclusive) reference to the recent, voluminous literature on this topic in legal philosophy. There are two central questions: (1) Is there a distinctive method of philosophical inquiry? (2) What is the relationship between philosophical methods and the methods (and results) of the empirical sciences (broadly construed)?
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57Naturalism in legal philosophyStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.The “naturalistic turn” that has swept so many areas of philosophy over the past three decades has also had an impact in the last decade in legal philosophy. Methodological naturalists (M-naturalists) view philosophy as continuous with empirical inquiry in the sciences. Some M-naturalists want to replace conceptual and justificatory theories with empirical and descriptive theories; they take their inspiration from more-or-less Quinean arguments against conceptual analysis and foundationalist pro…Read more
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300Moral Facts and Best ExplanationsSocial Philosophy and Policy 18 (2): 79. 2001.Do moral properties figure in the best explanatory account of the world? According to a popular realist argument, if they do, then they earn their ontological rights, for only properties that figure in the best explanation of experience are real properties. Although this realist strategy has been widely influential—not just in metaethics, but also in philosophy of mind and philosophy of science—no one has actually made the case that moral realism requires: namely, that moral facts really will fi…Read more
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45Reply to Five Critics of Why Tolerate Religion?Criminal Law and Philosophy 10 (3): 547-558. 2016.This is my contribution to a symposium on my book Why Tolerate Religion?, in which I respond to essays by François Boucher and Cécile Laborde, Frederick Schauer, Corey Brettschneider, and Peter Jones. I clarify and revise my view of the sense in which some religious beliefs are “insulated from reasons and evidence” in response to the criticisms of Boucher and Laborde, but take issue with other aspects of their critique. I defend most of my original argument against utilitarian and egalitarian ob…Read more
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71Realism, Hard Positivism, and Conceptual AnalysisLegal Theory 4 (4): 533-547. 1998.The American Legal Realists, as I read them, are tacit legal positivists: they presuppose views about the criteria of legality that have affinities with positivist accounts of law in the sense that they employ primarily pedigree tests of legal validity. Ever since Ronald Dworkin's well-known critique of H.L.A. Hart's positivism a generation ago, however, it has been hotly contested whether there is anything about positivism as a legal theory that requires that tests of legal validity be pedigree…Read more
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IntroductionIn Brian Leiter & Michael Rosen (eds.), The Oxford handbook of continental philosophy, Oxford University Press. 2007.
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82Nietzsche's theory of the willIn Ken Gemes & Simon May (eds.), Nietzsche on freedom and autonomy, Oxford University Press. pp. 119-137. 2009.The essay offers a philosophical reconstruction of Nietzsche's theory of the will, focusing on (1) Nietzsche's account of the phenomenology of "willing " an action, the experience we have which leads us (causally) to conceive of ourselves as exercising our will; (2) Nietzsche's arguments that the experiences picked out by the phenomenology are not causally connected to the resulting action (at least not in a way sufficient to underwrite ascriptions of moral responsibility); and (3) Nietzsche's a…Read more
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73Closet dualism and mental causationCanadian Journal of Philosophy 28 (2): 161-181. 1998.Serious doubts about nonreductive materialism — the orthodoxy of the past two decades in philosophy of mind — have been long overdue. Jaegwon Kim has done perhaps the most to articulate the metaphysical problems that the new breed of materialists must confront in reconciling their physicalism with their commitment to the autonomy of the mental. Although the difficulties confronting supervenience, multiple-realizability, and mental causation have been recurring themes in his work, only mental cau…Read more
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189Nietzsche's metaethics: Against the privilege ReadingsEuropean Journal of Philosophy 8 (3). 2000.
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2Naturalism and naturalized jurisprudenceIn Brian Bix (ed.), Analyzing law: new essays in legal theory, Oxford University Press. pp. 79. 1998.
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University of ChicagoRegular Faculty
Chicago, Illinois, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
19th Century Philosophy |