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206Hierarchy and Heterarchy in Ross's Theories of the Right and the GoodIn Robert Audi & David Phillips (eds.), The Moral Philosophy of W. D. Ross, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.In both The Right and the Good and The Foundations of Ethics, W. D. Ross maintains that any amount of the non-instrumental value of virtue outweighs any amount of the non-instrumental value of pleasure or avoidance of pain. The chapter raises two challenges to the status that Ross accords the value of virtue relative to the value of pleasure (pain). First, it argues that Ross fails to provide a good argument for thinking that virtue is always better than pleasure and that it is in any case impl…Read more
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331Sidgwick on Free Will and EthicsIn Maximilian Kiener (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Responsibility, Routledge. pp. 82-94. 2023.In The Methods of Ethics, Henry Sidgwick maintains that resolution of the free will problem is of “limited” importance to ethics and to practical reasoning. Despite the view’s uniqueness, surprisingly little sustained attention has been paid to Sidgwick’s view. This chapter tries to remedy this situation. Part one clarifies Sidgwick’s argument for the claim that resolving the free will controversy is of only limited importance to ethics. Part two examines and tries to deflect objections to Sidgw…Read more
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276Transformative Choice and Decision-Making CapacityLaw Quarterly Review 139 (4): 654-680. 2023.This article is about the information relevant to decision-making capacity in refusal of life-prolonging medical treatment cases. We examine the degree to which the phenomenology of the options available to the agent—what the relevant states of affairs will feel like for them—forms part of the capacity-relevant information in the law of England and Wales, and how this informational basis varies across adolescent and adult medical treatment cases. We identify an important doctrinal phenomenon. In…Read more
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59Review of Dale Jamieson (Ed.), Singer and his Critics (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (4). 2001.This is a review of Singer and His Critics edited by Dale Jamieson. It argues that the volume is important. The essay by Colin McGinn is heavily criticized.
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78Review of R. M. Hare, Sorting out Ethics (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 79 (4): 583-585. 2001.This is a short review of R.M. Hare's Sorting Out Ethics. It critically evaluates Hare's universal prescriptivism.
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2Review of David Heyd (Ed.), Toleration: An Elusive Virtue (review)Philosophy in Review 18 (3): 180-182. 1998.
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247Review of David Phillips, Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics: A Guide (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2022.This is a review of David Phillips, Sidgwick's The Methods of Ethics: A Guide.
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209Children's Prudential ValueIn Christopher Wareham (ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing, Cambridge University Press. pp. 38-53. 2022.Until recently, the nature of children’s well-being or prudential value remained all but unexplored in the literature on well-being. There now exists a small but growing body of work on the topic. In this chapter, I focus on a cluster of under-explored issues relating to children’s well-being. I investigate, in specific, three distinct (and to my mind puzzling) positions about it, namely, that children’s lives cannot on the whole go well or poorly for them, prudentially speaking; that the prude…Read more
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466Overriding Adolescent Refusals of TreatmentJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 20 (3): 221-247. 2021.Adolescents are routinely treated differently to adults, even when they possess similar capacities. In this article, we explore the justification for one case of differential treatment of adolescents. We attempt to make philosophical sense of the concurrent consents doctrine in law: adolescents found to have decision-making capacity have the power to consent to—and thereby, all else being equal, permit—their own medical treatment, but they lack the power always to refuse treatment and so render …Read more
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331Should we delay covid-19 vaccination in children?British Medical Journal 374 (8300): 96-97. 2021.The net benefit of vaccinating children is unclear, and vulnerable people worldwide should be prioritised instead, say Dominic Wilkinson, Ilora Finlay, and Andrew J Pollard. But Lisa Forsberg and Anthony Skelton argue that covid-19 vaccines have been approved for some children and that children should not be disadvantaged because of policy choices that impede global vaccination
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123Review of Anthony Appiah, Experiments in Ethics (review)Globe and Mail. 2008.A review of Anthony Appiah's Experiments in Ethics.
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966Mandating VaccinationIn Meredith Celene Schwartz (ed.), The Ethics of Pandemics, Broadview Press. pp. 131-134. 2020.A short piece exploring some arguments for mandating vaccination for Covid-19.
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523Practical Ethics in Sidgwick and KantIn Tyler Paytas & Tim Henning (eds.), Kantian and Sidgwickian Ethics: The Cosmos of Duty Above and the Moral Law Within, Routledge. pp. 13-39. 2020.Sidgwick claimed Kant as one of his moral philosophical masters. This did not prevent Sidgwick from registering pointed criticisms of most of Kant’s main claims in ethics. This paper explores the practical ethics of Sidgwick and Kant. In § I, I outline the element of Kant’s theoretical ethics that Sidgwick endorsed. In §§ II and III, I outline and adjudicate some of their sharpest disagreements in practical ethics, on the permissibility of lying and on the demands of beneficence. In § IV, I argu…Read more
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612Achievement and EnhancementCanadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (3): 322-338. 2020.We engage with the nature and the value of achievement through a critical examination of an argument according to which biomedical “enhancement” of our capacities is impermissible because enhancing ourselves in this way would threaten our achievements. We call this the argument against enhancement from achievement. We assess three versions of it, each admitting to a strong or a weak reading. We argue that strong readings fail, and that weak readings, while in some cases successful in showing tha…Read more
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1299Bioethics in Canada, second edition (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2019.This is the second edition of the textbook Bioethics in Canada. It is the most up to date bioethics textbook on the Canadian market. Twenty-nine of its 54 contributions are by Canadians. All the chapters carried over from the first edition are revised in full (especially the chapters on obligations to the global poor, on medical assistance in dying, and on public health). It comprises *new* chapters on emerging genetic technologies and on indigenous peoples' health. It contains *new* case s…Read more
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504Late Utilitarian Moral Theory and Its Development: Sidgwick, MooreIn John Shand (ed.), A Companion to Nineteenth-Century Philosophy (Blackwell Companions to Philosophy), Wiley-blackwell. pp. 281-310. 2019.Henry Sidgwick taught G.E. Moore as an undergraduate at the University of Cambridge. Moore found Sidgwick’s personality less than attractive and his lectures “rather dull”. Still, philosophically speaking, Moore absorbed a great deal from Sidgwick. In the Preface to the Trinity College Prize Fellowship dissertation that he submitted in 1898, just two years after graduation, he wrote “For my ethical views it will be obvious how much I owe to Prof. Sidgwick.” Later, in Principia Ethica, Moore …Read more
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612Review of Robert Myers, Self-Governance and Cooperation (review)Utilitas 14 (1): 128-130. 2002.A critical review of Robert Myers Self-Governance and Cooperation
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317Review of Glenn McGee (Ed.), Pragmatic Bioethics (review)Philosophy in Review 20 (5): 365-367. 2000.Critical review of Glenn McGee, ed., Pragmatic Bioethics.
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424Review of Bart Schultz, Henry Sidgwick, Eye of the Universe: An Intellectual Biography (review)Philosophy in Review 25 (3): 231-234. 2005.A critical review of Bart Schultz, Henry Sidgwick, Eye of the Universe
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649Children and Well-BeingIn Anca Gheaus, Gideon Calder & Jurgen de Wispelaere (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Childhood and Children, Routledge. pp. 90-100. 2018.Children are routinely treated paternalistically. There are good reasons for this. Children are quite vulnerable. They are ill-equipped to meet their most basic needs, due, in part, to deficiencies in practical and theoretical reasoning and in executing their wishes. Children’s motivations and perceptions are often not congruent with their best interests. Consequently, raising children involves facilitating their best interests synchronically and diachronically. In practice, this requires caregi…Read more
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313Symposium on David Phillips's Sidgwickian Ethics: IntroductionRevue d'Etudes Benthamiennes 12. 2013.This is a brief introduction to a symposium on David Phillips's Sidgwickian Ethics.
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113William David RossStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.Presents and argues for a novel interpretation of Ross's distinctive contribution to moral theory and meta-ethics.
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8399Ideal Utilitarianism: Rashdall and MooreIn Thomas Hurka (ed.), Underivative duty: British moral philosophers from Sidgwick to Ewing, Oxford University Press. pp. 45-65. 2011.Ideal utilitarianism states that the only fundamental requirement of morality is to promote a plurality of intrinsic goods. This paper critically evaluates Hastings Rashdall’s arguments for ideal utilitarianism, while comparing them with G. E. Moore’s arguments. Section I outlines Rashdall’s ethical outlook. Section II considers two different arguments that he provides for its theory of rightness. Section III discusses his defence of a pluralist theory of value. Section IV argues that Rashdall m…Read more
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738On Henry Sidgwick’s “My Station and Its Duties”Ethics 125 (1): 586-591. 2014.This is a retrospective essay on Henry Sidgwick's "My Station and Its Duties" written to mark the 125th anniversary of Ethics. It engages with Sidgwick's remarks on the kind of ethical expertise that the moral philosopher possesses and on his approach to practical ethics generally.
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82Review of Peter Singer, The Life You Can Save (review)The Globe and Mail. 2009.This is a review of Peter Singer The Life You Can Save. The author argues that the book is excellent and sees Singer at his best
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803Sidgwick’s Argument for Utilitarianism and his Moral Epistemology: A Reply to David PhillipsRevue d'Etudes Benthamiennes 12. 2013.David Phillips’s Sidgwickian Ethics is a penetrating contribution to the scholarly and philosophical understanding of Henry Sidgwick’s The Methods of Ethics. This note focuses on Phillips’s understanding of (aspects of) Sidgwick’s argument for utilitarianism and the moral epistemology to which he subscribes. In § I, I briefly outline the basic features of the argument that Sidgwick provides for utilitarianism, noting some disagreements with Phillips along the way. In § II, I raise some objection…Read more
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1501E. F. Carritt (1876-1964)In Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.E. F. Carritt (1876-1964) was educated at and taught in Oxford University. He made substantial contributions both to aesthetics and to moral philosophy. The focus of this entry is his work in moral philosophy. His most notable works in this field are The Theory of Morals (1928) and Ethical and Political Thinking (1947). Carritt developed views in metaethics and in normative ethics. In meta-ethics he defends a cognitivist, non-naturalist moral realism and was among the first to respond to A. J. A…Read more
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116Schultz's SidgwickUtilitas 19 (1): 91-103. 2007.Bart Schultz’s Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe is a welcome addition to the growing literature on Sidgwick. In this article, I direct my attention for the most part to one aspect of what Schultz says about Sidgwick’s masterpiece, The Methods of Ethics, as well as to what he does not say about Sidgwick’s illuminating but neglected work Practical Ethics. This article is divided into three sections. In the first, I argue that there is a problem with Schultz’s endorsement of the view that Sidgwi…Read more
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Normative Ethics |
Value Theory |
History of Ethics |
Applied Ethics |
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Utilitarianism |