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143Conditional 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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Akeel Bilgrami, Belief and MeaningInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 3 (2): 353-354. 1995.
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261The making/evidential reason distinctionAnalysis 71 (1): 100-102. 2011.Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star have made the following interesting proposal concerning the relation between practical reasons and evidence : Necessarily: A fact F is a reason for you to φ iff F is evidence that you ought to φ We're not sure about this. Although moving from left to right might be OK, the converse is problematic. For example, the fact that your reliable friend told you that you have overriding moral reason to φ is …
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28Duty, rationality, and practical reasonsIn Piers Rawling & Alfred R. Mele (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 110--131. 2004.McNaughton and Rawling present a view on which practical reasons are facts, such as the fact that the rubbish bin is full. This is a non-normative fact, but it is a reason for you to do something, namely take the rubbish out. They see rationality as a matter of consistency. And they see duty as neither purely a matter of rationality nor of practical reason: on the one hand, the rational sociopath is immoral; but, on the other, morality does not require that we always act on the weightiest moral …Read more
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144Deontology and AgencyThe Monist 76 (1): 81-100. 1993.Any adequate account of the distinction between consequentialist and deontological moral systems must take account of the central place given to constraints in the latter. Constraints place limits on what each of us may do in the pursuit of any goal, including the maximisation of the good. There is some debate, however, both over how constraints are to be characterised, and over the rationale for their inclusion in a moral system. Some authors view constraints as agent-relative: a constraint sup…Read more
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51Expected Utility, Ordering, and Context FreedomEconomics and Philosophy 13 (1): 79. 1997.The context-free weak ordering principle is viewed by many as a cornerstone of rational choice theory. McClennen, for example, claims that this principle is one of a pair on which '[t]he theory of rational choice and preference, as it has been developed in the past few decades by economists and decision theorists, rests', and Sen characterizes a version of context freedom as ‘a very basic requirement of rational choice’. But this principle is certainly not uncontroversial: there are examples of …Read more
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The Logical Status of Conditionalization and its Role in Confirmation CommentaryPoznan Studies in the Philosophy of the Sciences and the Humanities 71 77-94. 2000.
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211Value 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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Psychology and Newtonian MethodologyJournal of Mind and Behavior 16 (1): 35-43. 1995.According to Newton, the goals of natural philosophy comprise quantitative generalizations and causal knowledge, the latter being paramount. Quantitative generalizations are sometimes explanatory, in psychology as elsewhere . However, in psychology, they are not explanatory when the human subject is considered qua bearer of psychological states , but only when she is considered qua physical system. In the former case quantitative generalizations are, rather, to be causally explained. In this sen…Read more
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156Unprincipled EthicsIn Brad Hooker & Margaret Olivia Little (eds.), Moral Particularism, Clarendon Press. 1988.
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80Benefits, holism, and the aggregation of valueSocial Philosophy and Policy 26 (1): 354-374. 2009.We reject Moorean holism about value—the view that the value of the whole does not equal the sum of the values of its parts. We propose an alternative aggregative holism according to which the value of a state of affairs is the sum of the values of its constituent states. But these constituents must be evaluated in situ
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1Steven Rappaport, Models and Reality in Economics Reviewed byPhilosophy in Review 20 (4): 279-281. 2000.
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28Rationality, Allocation, and Reproduction, Vivian Walsh. Clarendon Press, 1996, x + 304 pages (review)Economics and Philosophy 14 (2): 342. 1998.
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496On 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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140DeontologyIn David Copp (ed.), The Oxford handbook of ethical theory, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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63Perspectives on a Pair of EnvelopesTheory and Decision 43 (3): 253-277. 1997.The two envelopes problem has generated a significant number of publications (I have benefitted from reading many of them, only some of which I cite; see the epilogue for a historical note). Part of my purpose here is to provide a review of previous results (with somewhat simpler demonstrations). In addition, I hope to clear up what I see as some misconceptions concerning the problem. Within a countably additive probability framework, the problem illustrates a breakdown of dominance with respect…Read more
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113Introduction: Aspects of RationalityIn Alfred R. Mele & Piers Rawling (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Rationality, Oxford University Press. 2004.This article examines the nature of rationality. The domain of rationality is customarily divided into the theoretical and the practical. Whereas theoretical or epistemic rationality is concerned with what it is rational to believe, and sometimes with rational degrees of belief, practical rationality is concerned with what it is rational to do, or intend or desire to do. This article raises some of the main issues relevant to philosophical discussion of the nature of rationality. Discussions of …Read more
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69I—David McNaughton and Piers Rawling: Descriptivism, Normativity and the Metaphysics of ReasonsAristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1): 23-45. 2003.
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