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558Moral CognitivismPhilosophical Papers 31 (1): 1-25. 2002.Abstract The paper explicates a set of criteria the joint satisfaction of which is taken to qualify moral judgements as cognitive. The paper examines evidence that some moral judgements meet these criteria, and relates the resulting conception of moral judgements to ongoing controversies about cognitivism in ethics
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792Constructivism and the Error TheoryIn Christian Miller (ed.), Continuum Companion to Ethics, Continuum. 2011.This paper presents a comparative evaluation of constructivist and error theoretic accounts of moral claims. It is argued that constructivism has distinct advantages over error theory
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890Methods of ethics and the descent of man: Darwin and Sidgwick on ethics and evolutionBiology and Philosophy 25 (3): 361-378. 2010.Darwin’s treatment of morality in The Descent of Man has generated a wide variety of responses among moral philosophers. Among these is the dismissal of evolution as irrelevant to ethics by Darwin’s contemporary Henry Sidgwick; the last, and arguably the greatest, of the Nineteenth Century British Utilitarians. This paper offers a re-examination of Sidgwick’s response to evolutionary considerations as irrelevant to ethics and the absence of any engagement with Darwin’s work in Sidgwick’s main et…Read more
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33From genes to eugenicsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 32 (4): 589-600. 2001.
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1370Values of Art and the Ethical QuestionBritish Journal of Aesthetics 48 (4): 376-394. 2008.Does the ethical value of a work of art ever contribute to its aesthetic value? I argue that when conventionally interpreted as a request for a conceptual analysis the answer to this question is indeterminate. I then propose a different interpretation of the question on which it is understood as a substantial and normative question internal to the practice of aesthetic criticism.
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310Analytical dispositionalism and practical reasonEthical Theory and Moral Practice 2 (2): 117-133. 1999.The paper examines the plausibility of analytical dispositionalism about practical reason, according to which the following claims are conceptual truths about common sense ethical discourse: i) Ethics: agents have reasons to act in some ways rather than others, and ii) Metaphysical Modesty: there is no such thing as a response independent normative reality. By elucidating two uncontroversial assumptions which are fundamental to the common sense commitment to ethics, I argue that common sense eth…Read more
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35Review of Richard Joyce, Simon Kirchin (eds.), A World Without Values: Essays on John Mackie's Moral Error Theory (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2010 (7). 2010.
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8404The Argument from QueernessIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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22Normative Bedrock: Response-Dependence, Rationality, & ReasonsPhilosophical Quarterly 65 (258): 120-123. 2015.
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640An Assumption of Extreme Significance: Moore, Ross and Spencer on Ethics and EvolutionIn Uri D. Leibowitz & Neil Sinclair (eds.), Explanation in Ethics and Mathematics: Debunking and Dispensability, Oxford University Press Uk. 2016.In recent years there has been a growing interest among mainstream Anglophone moral philosophers in the empirical study of human morality, including its evolution and historical development. This chapter compares these developments with an earlier point of contact between moral philosophy and the moral sciences in the early decades of the Twentieth century, as manifested in some of the less frequently discussed arguments of G. E. Moore and W. D. Ross. It is argued that a critical appreciation of…Read more
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50Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible HarmJournal of Moral Philosophy 5 (3): 455-457. 2008.
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1373Debunking morality: Evolutionary naturalism and moral error theoryBiology and Philosophy 18 (4): 567-581. 2003.The paper distinguishes three strategies by means of which empirical discoveries about the nature of morality can be used to undermine moral judgements. On the first strategy, moral judgements are shown to be unjustified in virtue of being shown to rest on ignorance or false belief. On the second strategy, moral judgements are shown to be false by being shown to entail claims inconsistent with the relevant empirical discoveries. On the third strategy, moral judgements are shown to be false in vi…Read more
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508The doctrine of internal reasonsJournal of Value Inquiry 34 (4): 507-516. 2000.According to advocates of internalism about reasons for action, there is an interesting connection between an agent’s reasons and the agent’s present desires. On the simplest version of this view, an agent has a reason to act a certain way at some time if and only if acting that way would promote his present desires. Let us call this the sub-Humean model.1 The sub-Humean model is widely regarded as too simple on the grounds that there are adverse conditions, such as massive confusion, in which d…Read more
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38Jamieson on the ethics of animals and the environmentStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 35 (4): 743-751. 2004.
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20Review of Alan Millar, Understanding People: Normativity and Rationalizing Explanation (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2005 (8). 2005.
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644Ethics, evolution and the a priori: Ross on Spencer and the French SociologistsIn Michael Ruse & Robert J. Richards (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Ethics, Cambridge University Press. 2017.In this chapter I critically discuss the dismissal of the philosophical significance of facts about human evolution and historical development in the work of W. D Ross. I address Ross’s views about the philosophical significance of the emerging human sciences of his time in two of his main works, namely The Right and the Good and The Foundations of Ethics. I argue that the debate between Ross and his chosen interlocutors (Herbert Spencer, Emile Durkheim and Lucien Levy-Bruhl) shows striking simi…Read more
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600Moral realism, normative reasons, and rational intelligibilityErkenntnis 57 (1): 47-69. 2002.This paper concerns a prima facie tension between the claims that (a) agents have normative reasons obtaining in virtue of the nature of the options that confront them, and (b) there is a non-trivial connection between the grounds of normative reasons and the upshots of sound practical reasoning. Joint commitment to these claims is shown to give rise to a dilemma. I argue that the dilemma is avoidable on a response dependent account of normative reasons accommodating both (a) and (b) by yielding…Read more
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11From Genes to EugenicsStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 32 (4): 589-600. 2001.
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152Who cares where you come from? cultivating virtues of indifferenceIn Tabitha Freeman Susanna Graham & Fatemeh Ebtehaj Martin Richards (eds.), Relatedness in Assisted Reproduction: families, origins and identities, Cambridge University Press. pp. 97-112. 2014.Book synopsis: Assisted reproduction challenges and reinforces traditional understandings of family, kinship and identity. Sperm, egg and embryo donation and surrogacy raise questions about relatedness for parents, children and others involved in creating and raising a child. How socially, morally or psychologically significant is a genetic link between a donor-conceived child and their donor? What should children born through assisted reproduction be told about their origins? Does it matter if …Read more
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3013Benefit, disability and the non-identity problemIn Nafsika Athanassoulis (ed.), Philosophical Reflections on Medical Ethics, Palgrave-macmillan. 2005.
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2250The Companions in Guilt StrategyIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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382Revisionary dispositionalism and practical reasonThe Journal of Ethics 4 (3): 173-190. 2000.This paper examines the metaphysically modest view that attributionsof normative reasons can be made true in the absence of a responseindependent normative reality. The paper despairs in finding asatisfactory account of normative reasons in metaphysically modestterms.
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793A Distinction Without a Difference? Good Advice for Moral Error TheoristsRatio 26 (3): 373-390. 2013.This paper explores the prospects of different forms of moral error theory. It is argued that only a suitably local error theory would make good sense of the fact that it is possible to give and receive genuinely good moral advice
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317I—Hallvard Lillehammer: Moral Testimony, Moral Virtue, and the Value of AutonomyAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 88 (1): 111-127. 2014.According to some, taking moral testimony is a potentially decent way to exercise one's moral agency. According to others, it amounts to a failure to live up to minimal standards of moral worth. What's the issue? Is it conceptual or empirical? Is it epistemological or moral? Is there a ‘puzzle’ of moral testimony; or are there many, or none? I argue that there is no distinctive puzzle of moral testimony. The question of its legitimacy is as much a moral or political as an epistemological questio…Read more
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1085Davidson on value and objectivityDialectica 61 (2). 2007.According to one version of objectivism about value, ethical and other evaluative claims have a fixed truth-value independently of who makes them or the society in which they happen to live (c.f. Davidson 2004, 42). Subjectivists about value deny this claim. According to subjectivism so understood, ethical and other evaluative claims have no fixed truth-value, either because their truth-value is dependent on who makes them, or because they have no truth-value at all
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808The Epistemology of Ethical IntuitionsPhilosophy 86 (2): 175-200. 2011.Intuitions are widely assumed to play an important evidential role in ethical inquiry. In this paper I critically discuss a recently influential claim that the epistemological credentials of ethical intuitions are undermined by their causal pedigree and functional role. I argue that this claim is exaggerated. In the course of doing so I argue that the challenge to ethical intuitions embodied in this claim should be understood not only as a narrowly epistemological challenge, but also as a substa…Read more
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66Review of Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defense (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2004 (5). 2004.
Hallvard Lillehammer
Birkbeck College, University Of London
Birkbeck, University of London
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Birkbeck College, University Of LondonDepartment Of PhilosophyProfessor
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Sheffield, South Yorkshire, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |