•  11
    In this paper, I make a novel case for an expansive approach to engineering ethics education, one that regards micro-ethics and macro-ethics as essentially complementary. Although others have voiced support for including macro-ethical reflection within engineering ethics education, I advance a stronger claim, arguing that isolating engineering ethics from macro-level issues risks rendering even micro-ethical inquiry morally meaningless. I divide my proposal into four parts. First, I clarify the …Read more
  •  16
    Review of Primates and Philosophers (review)
    Journal of Philosophy, Science, and Law 9. 2009.
  •  37
    Regret
    In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.
    We are all familiar with regret. And on the face of it, there doesn't seem to be anything puzzling about it, the way there is about (among other things) self‐deception and survivor guilt. So what philosophical significance does it have?
  •  19
    A Review of Primates and Philosophers: How Morality Evolved (review)
    Journal of Philosophy, Science and Law 9 1-7. 2009.
  •  570
    Animal communication and neo-expressivism
    with Grant Goodrich and Colin Allen
    In Robert W. Lurz (ed.), The Philosophy of Animal Minds, Cambridge University Press. pp. 128--144. 2009.
    One of the earliest issues in cognitive ethology concerned the meaning of animal signals. In the 1970s and 1980s this debate was most active with respect to the question of whether animal alarm calls convey information about the emotional states of animals or whether they “refer” directly to predators in the environment (Seyfarth, Cheney, & Marler 1980; see Radick 2007 for a historical account), but other areas, such as vocalizations about food and social contact, were also widely discussed. In …Read more
  •  169
    Activity, Passivity, and Normative Avowal
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (1): 2-24. 2017.
    The idea that agents can be active with respect to some of their actions, and passive with respect to others, is a widely held assumption within moral philosophy. But exactly how to characterize these notions is controversial. I argue that an agent is active just in case her action is one whose motive she can truly avow as reason-giving, or her action is one whose motive she can disavow, provided her disavowal effects appropriate modifications in her future motives. This view maintains a link be…Read more
  •  54
    Moral Distress, Moral Injury, and Moral Luck
    American Journal of Bioethics 16 (12): 29-31. 2016.
  •  69
    Acting for a Reason and Following a Principle
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (3): 649-661. 2015.
    According to an influential view of practical reason and rational agency, a person acts for a reason only if she recognizes some consideration to be a reason, where this recognition motivates her to act. I call this requirement the guidance condition on acting for a reason. Despite its intuitive appeal, the guidance condition appears to generate a vicious regress. At least one proponent of the guidance condition, Christine M. Korsgaard, is sensitive to this regress worry, and her appeal in recen…Read more