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604Moral vision: an introduction to ethicsBlackwell. 1988.This book introduces the reader to ethics by examining a current and important debate. During the last fifty years the orthodox position in ethics has been a broadly non-cognitivist one: since there are no moral facts, moral remarks are best understood, not as attempting to describe the world, but as having some other function - such as expressing the attitudes or preferences of the speaker. In recent years this position has been increasingly challenged by moral realists who maintain that there …Read more
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220Value and Agent-Relative ReasonsUtilitas 7 (1): 31. 1995.In recent years the distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons has been taken by many to play a key role in distinguishing deontology from consequentialism. It is central to all universalist consequentialist theories that value is determined impersonally; the real value of any state of affairs does not depend on the point of view of the agent. No reference, therefore, to the agent or to his or her position in the world need enter into a consequentialist understanding of what ma…Read more
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IntuitionismIn Hugh LaFollette - (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, Blackwell. pp. 268--87. 2000.
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280Achievement, welfare and consequentialismAnalysis 61 (2). 2001.significant role for accomplishment thereby admits a ‘Trojan Horse’ (267).1 To abandon hedonism in favour of a conception of well-being that incorporates achievement is to take the first step down a slippery slope toward the collapse of the other two pillars of utilitarian morality: welfarism and consequentialism. We shall argue that Crisp’s arguments do not support these conclusions. We begin with welfarism. Crisp defines it thus: ‘Well-being is the only value. Everything good must be good for …Read more
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2The problem of evil: A deontological perspectiveIn Richard Swinburne & Alan G. Padgett (eds.), Reason and the Christian religion: essays in honour of Richard Swinburne, Oxford University Press. pp. 329--351. 1994.
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98Forgiving for goodThe Philosophers' Magazine 52 (52): 43-48. 2011.The repentant offender has placed himself on the side of right, so to speak – he now stands with the victim against his own previous bad behaviour, which he now rejects. He’s a proper recipient for the gift of forgiveness. It can be morally appropriate to wipe the slate clean for him. But the unrepentant offender has undergone no such change. Why should we wipe the slate clean for such a person?
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506On defending deontologyRatio 11 (1). 1998.This paper comprises three sections. First, we offer a traditional defence of deontology, in the manner of, for example, W.D. Ross (1965). The leading idea of such a defence is that the right is independent of the good. Second, we modify the now standard account of the distinction, in terms of the agent-relative/agentneutral divide, between deontology and consequentialism. (This modification is necessary if indirect consequentialism is to count as a form of consequentialism.) Third, we challenge…Read more
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20Morality and Universality: Essays on Ethical UniversalizabilityPhilosophical Books 28 (2): 99-102. 1987.
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Forgiveness and forgivingnessIn S. van Hooft, N. Athanassoulis, J. Kawall, J. Oakley & L. van Zyl (eds.), The handbook of virtue ethics, Acumen Publishing. 2014.
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5Constructions of Reason: Explorations of Kant's Practical PhilosophyPhilosophical Books 32 (3): 150-151. 1991.
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134
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62Review of Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (9). 2006.
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Moral Vision: An Introduction to EthicsInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 30 (3): 188-189. 1988.
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5Conditional unconditional forgivenessIn Christel Fricke (ed.), The Ethics of Forgiveness: A Collection of Essays, Routledge. 2011.
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76I—David McNaughton and Piers Rawling: Descriptivism, Normativity and the Metaphysics of ReasonsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1): 23-45. 2003.
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142DeontologyIn David Copp (ed.), The Oxford handbook of ethical theory, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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157Unprincipled EthicsIn Brad Hooker & Margaret Olivia Little (eds.), Moral particularism, Oxford University Press. 2000.
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97Mapping moral motivationEthical Theory and Moral Practice 1 (1): 45-59. 1998.In this paper we defend a version of moral internalism and a cognitivist account of motivation against recent criticisms. The internalist thesis we espouse claims that, if an agent believes she has reason to A, then she is motivated to A. Discussion of counter-examples has been clouded by the absence of a clear account of the nature of motivation. While we can only begin to provide such an account in this paper, we do enough to show that our version of internalism can be defended against putativ…Read more
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52ParticularismIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
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144Conditional and Conditioned ReasonsUtilitas 14 (2): 240. 2002.This paper is a brief reponse to some of Douglas Portmore's criticisms of our version of the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction
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377From Darkness into Light? Reflections on Wandering in DarknessEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (3): 123--135. 2012.
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132Contours of the PracticalIn David Bakhurst, Margaret Olivia Little & Brad Hooker (eds.), Thinking about reasons: themes from the philosophy of Jonathan Dancy, Oxford University Press. pp. 240. 2013.
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22Response to DiamondRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 29 85-86. 1991.Where two people differ about the application of some term to a particular object, to what can they appeal to settle their disagreement? In my paper I suggested that the disputants can legitimately draw attention to various features of the contested case to try to show the continuity, or lack of it, between this case and other instances that fall under the concept. In so doing they are offering reasons to justify their judgement in this particular case
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51I—David McNaughton and Piers Rawling: Descriptivism, Normativity and the Metaphysics of ReasonsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1): 23-45. 2003.Simon Blackburn can be seen as challenging those committed to sui generis moral facts to explain the supervenience of the moral on the descriptive. We hold that normative facts in general are sui generis. We also hold that the normative supervenes on the descriptive, and we here endeavour to answer the generalization of Blackburn's challenge. In the course of pursuing this answer, we suggest that Frank Jackson's descriptivism rests on a conception of properties inappropriate to discussions of no…Read more
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154Some of the virtues have a very stable place in our understanding of goodness – beneficence and courage are unlikely ever to lose their high standing. But other virtues have something like a life cycle: they move from a marginal status to to a central one, and sometimes they move back again to the margins, or even beyond the domain of virtue altogether. Chastity is one example of this; humility is another. There was a period in which humility wasn’t a virtue at all (see Aristotle on the great-so…Read more
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Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Religion |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |