•  175
    The methods of J. B. Schneewind
    Utilitas 16 (2): 146-167. 2004.
    J. B. Schneewind's Sidgwick's Ethics and Victorian Moral Philosophy was the single best philosophical commentary on Henry Sidgwick's Methods of Ethics produced in the twentieth century. Although Schneewind was primarily concerned to read Sidgwick's ethical theory in its historical context, as reflecting the controversies generated by such figures as J. S. Mill, F. D. Maurice, and William Whewell, his reading also ended up being highly neo-Kantian, reflecting various Rawlsian priorities. As valua…Read more
  •  103
    Obama's political philosophy: Pragmatism, politics, and the university of chicago
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 39 (2): 127-173. 2009.
    In early work, I argued that Barack Obama, the 44th president of the United States, often represented, in his political speeches and writings, a form of philosophical pragmatism with special relations to the University of Chicago and its reform tradition. That form of pragmatism, especially evident in the work of such early figures as John Dewey and Jane Addams, and such later figures as Saul Alinsky, Abner Mikva, David Greenstone, Richard Rorty, Danielle Allen, and Cass Sunstein, contributed gr…Read more
  •  94
    Go Tell It on the Mountain
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 44 (2): 233-251. 2014.
    Derek Parfit’s long-awaited work On What Matters is a very ambitious, very strange production seeking to defend both a nonreductive and nonnaturalistic but nonmetaphysical and nonontological form of cognitive intuitionism or rationalism and an ethical theory (the Triple Theory) reflecting the convergence of Kantian universalizability, Scanlonian contractualism, and rule utilitarianism. Critics have already countered that Parfit’s metaethics is unbelievable and his convergence thesis unconvincing…Read more
  •  85
    Head hurters
    with Richard Ashcroft, Stephen Burwood, J. B. Kennedy, and David Papineau
    The Philosophers' Magazine 30 (30): 57-61. 2005.
  •  79
    Mill and Sidgwick, imperialism and racism
    Utilitas 19 (1): 104-130. 2007.
    This essay is in effect something of a self-review of my book Henry Sidgwick: Eye of the Universe and of the volume, co-edited with Georgios Varouxakis, Utilitarianism and Empire . My chief concern here is to go beyond those earlier works in underscoring the arbitrariness of the dominant contextualist and reconstructive historical accounts of J. S. Mill and Henry Sidgwick on the subjects of race and racism. The forms of racism are many, and simple historical accuracy suggests that both Mill and …Read more
  •  71
    Martha Nussbaum
    The Philosophers' Magazine 36 (36): 82-83. 2006.
  •  71
    Comment: The Private and Its Problems—Pragmatism, Pragmatist Feminism, and Homophobia
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 29 (2): 281-305. 1999.
    The pragmatist revival of recent decades has in some respects obscured the radical emancipatory potential of Deweyan pragmatism. The author suggests that neo-pragmatists such as Richard Rorty have too often failed to grasp the ways in which Dewey's notion of social intelligence was bound up with the case for participatory democracy, and that recent efforts to bring out the potential of pragmatism for supporting certain forms of feminist and gay critical theory make for a more compelling reconstr…Read more
  •  66
    Sidgwick's Feminism
    Utilitas 12 (3): 379. 2000.
    Henry Sidgwick shared many of the feminist concerns of John Stuart Mill and was an active reformer in the cause of higher education for women, but his feminism has never received the attention it deserves and he has in recent times been criticized for promulgating a masculinist epistemology. This essay is a prolegomenon to a comprehensive account of Sidgwick's feminism, briefly setting out various elements of his views on epistemology, equality, gender, and sexuality in order to provide some ini…Read more
  •  61
    Henry Sidgwick has gone down in the history of philosophy as both the great, classical utilitarian moral theorist who authoredThe Methods of Ethics, and an outstanding exemplar of intellectual honesty and integrity, one whose personal virtues were inseparable from his philosophical strengths and method. Yet this construction of Sidgwick the philosopher has been based on a too limited understanding of Sidgwick's casuistry and leading practical ethical concerns. As his friendship with John Addingt…Read more
  •  51
    Review essay: John Rawls's last word
    Philosophy of the Social Sciences 39 (1): 107-114. 2009.
    Although no one can deny the profound importance of John Rawls's work in political philosophy, which covered both an original theory of justice and extensive work and teaching on the history of moral and political philosophy, we are now at the point where his contributions more clearly suggest certain historical limitations. Such topics as gender justice, racial justice, and environmental justice figured in Rawls's work only belatedly and in less than satisfactory ways. Surely the wide influence…Read more
  •  50
  •  44
    Introduction
    with Russell Hardin
    Ethics 104 (1): 4-6. 1993.
  •  39
    Henry Sidgwick
    The Philosophers' Magazine 9 58-58. 2000.
  •  39
    Jeremy Bentham
    The Philosophers' Magazine 26 52-52. 2004.
  •  39
    Persons, selves, and utilitarianism
    Ethics 96 (4): 721-745. 1986.
  •  37
    The Cosmos of Duty: Henry Sidgwick’s Methods of Ethics by Roger Crisp
    Journal of the History of Philosophy 54 (3): 510-511. 2016.
    The career of Oxford philosopher Roger Crisp has produced a wonderfully rich yield of elegant, lucid philosophizing that combines in a rare mix historical erudition and brilliant, creative, and highly interdisciplinary ethical argument. Crisp is steeped in Aristotle and Mill, W. D. Ross and Derek Parfit, but his deepest source of inspiration is by his own admission the Victorian era Cambridge philosopher Henry Sidgwick, author of the famous Methods of Ethics. Although Sidgwick has been regarded …Read more
  •  30
    Essays on Henry Sidgwick (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 1992.
    The dominant moral philosophy of nineteenth-century Britain was utilitarianism, beginning with Bentham and ending with Sidgwick. Though once overshadowed by his immediate predecessors in that tradition, Sidgwick is now regarded as a figure of great importance in the history of moral philosophy. Indeed his masterpiece, The Methods of Ethics, has been described by John Rawls as the 'most philosophically profound' of the classical utilitarian works. In this volume a distinguished group of philosoph…Read more
  •  30
    G.E. Moore
    The Philosophers' Magazine 18 53-53. 2002.
  •  27
    Nietzsche, Aesthetics and Modernity (review)
    The Philosophers' Magazine 12 57-57. 2000.