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This policy report arises from the research project Augmented Reality: Ethics, Perception, Metaphysics, conducted at the University of Glasgow’s Centre for the Study of Perceptual Experience between November 2021 and November 2023. It was funded by a grant from the Royal Society of Edinburgh. The project brought together experts in various academic fields, with partners from industry and regulatory bodies, to explore the nature of augmented and mixed reality technology, the theories underpinning…Read more
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Moral Blackmail: coercion, responsibility, and global justiceRoutledge. 2024.Moral Blackmail: Coercion, Responsibility, and Global Justice identifies a novel kind of forced action, yet one that is relatively neglected in ethics and moral philosophy. Moral blackmail occurs when someone is forced to do something because someone else has made all its alternatives morally unacceptable. Ben Colburn explores moral blackmail by first examining existing theories of coercion, responsibility, and voluntary action, and defending its existence from various sceptical metaethical argu…Read more
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10Palliative care‐based arguments against assisted dyingBioethics. forthcoming.Opponents of legalised assisted dying often assert that palliative care is worse in countries where assisted dying has been legalised, and imply that legalised assisted dying makes palliative care worse. This study considers five versions of this claim: that it is difficulty to access expert palliative care in countries where assisted dying has been legalised, that those countries rank low in their quality of end‐of‐life care; that legalising assisted dying doesn't expand patient choice in respe…Read more
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211Autonomy-minded Anti-perfectionism: Novel, Intuitive, and SoundJournal of Philosophical Research 37 233-241. 2012.John Patrick Rudisill purports to identify various problems with my argument that the state promotion of autonomy is consistent with anti-perfectionism, viz. that it falsely pretends to be novel, is unacceptably counterintuitive because too restrictive and too permissive, and that it deploys self-defeating formal apparatus. I argue, in reply, that my argument is more novel than Rudisill gives me credit for; that properly understood my anti-perfectionism implies neither the implausible restrictio…Read more
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52Disability‐based arguments against assisted dying lawsBioethics 36 (6): 680-686. 2022.Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 6, Page 680-686, July 2022.
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37The Routledge Handbook of Autonomy (edited book)Routledge. 2022.A comprehensive survey of the key topics, debates and problems surrounding autonomy. Comprising over 40 chapters by an international team of contributors, the Handbook is essential reading for those in political philosophy, ethics, applied ethics and philosophy of law.
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36Editors’ Introduction: Responsibility, Luck, and a PandemicThe Monist 104 (2): 153-154. 2021.This issue of The Monist was edited in the middle of a worldwide pandemic. As the submissions came in, millions of people across the globe were infecting each other with the coronavirus ‘Covid-19’ in buses and on trains; in bars and in hotels; in airports and hospitals; in homes and universities. During parts of 2020, the presence of this deadly virus made national governments ‘lock down’ their economies and ‘lock up’ their citizens in a manner that has not previously been seen in modern peaceti…Read more
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141Autonomy, voluntariness and assisted dyingJournal of Medical Ethics 46 (5): 316-319. 2020.Ethical arguments about assisted dying often focus on whether or not respect for an individual’s autonomy gives a reason to offer them an assisted death if they want it. In this paper, I present an argument for legalising assisted dying which appeals to the autonomy of people who don’t want to die. Adding that option can transform the nature of someone’s choice set, enabling them to pursue other options voluntarily where that would otherwise be harder or impossible. This does not contradict the …Read more
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49This report, the first of the project, presents original research evidence based on 1,516 face-to-face interviews with young Syrian international protection beneficiaries and applicants, 18-32 years old, which were conducted in the UK, Lebanon and Greece, between April and October 2017. Key findings from this comparative analysis inform our policy recommendations concerning the settlement, training and skills provision for young forced migrants in the UK. Key Findings: - Young Syrian refugees in…Read more
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41Methods in ethics: IntroductionThe Virtual Issue of the Aristotelian Society 3: Methods in Ethics. 2015.The Aristotelian Society’s Virtual Issue is a free, online publication, made publically available on the Aristotelian Society website. Each volume is theme-based, collecting together papers from the archives of the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society and the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume that address the chosen theme. This year's Virtual Issue includes a selection of papers from across the Society’s fourteen decades, each accompanied by a specially commissioned…Read more
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665Anti-perfectionisms and autonomyAnalysis 70 (2): 247-256. 2010.I provide support for a liberal political philosophy that is fully committed to the state promotion of autonomy, and which also counts Anti-perfectionism amongst its other commitments. I do so by defending it against the serious charge that it is prima facie self-contradictory. After all, Anti-perfectionism appears to demand that the state refrain from promoting any value – it looks as though that must preclude the promotion of autonomy, if the latter is conceived of as a value. I argue that thi…Read more
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16The legacy of H.L.A. Hart: legal, political, and moral philosophy (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2008.This book is the product of a major British Academy Symposium held in 2007 to mark the centenary of the birth of H.L.A. Hart, the most important legal philosopher and one of the most important political philosophers of the twentieth century. The book brings together contributions from seventeen of the world's foremost legal and political philosophers who explore the many subjects in which Hart produced influential work. Each essay engages in an original analysis of philosophical problems that w…Read more
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462Responsibility and School Choice in EducationJournal of Philosophy of Education 46 (2): 207-222. 2012.Consider the following argument for school choice, based on an appeal to the virtues of the market: allowing parents some measure of choice over their particular children's education ultimately serves the interests of all children, because creating a market mechanism in state education will produce improvements through the same pressures that lead to greater efficiency and quality when markets are deployed in more familiar contexts. The argument fails, because it is committed to a principle of e…Read more
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310Some Further Concerns with Colburn's Autonomy-minded Anti-perfectionismJournal of Philosophical Research 37 243-248. 2012.In this rejoinder to Ben Colburn, I (1) further press, while modulating, my charge that his autonomy-minded anti-perfectionism is insufficiently novel, (2) articulate a new and distinct worry about the formal analysis that is at the center of his argument, and (3) enhance my criticism that the view Colburn defends is too permissive.
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568Hypothetical Insurance and Higher EducationJournal of Philosophy of Education 50 (4): 587-604. 2016.What level of government subsidy of higher education is justified, in what form, and for what reasons? We answer these questions by applying the hypothetical insurance approach, originally developed by Ronald Dworkin in his work on distributive justice. On this approach, when asking how to fund and deliver public services in a particular domain, we should seek to model what would be the outcome of a hypothetical insurance market: we stipulate that participants lack knowledge about their specific…Read more
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489Autonomy and End of Life Decisions: A ParadoxIn Juha Räikkä & Jukka Varelius (eds.), Adaptation and Autonomy: Adaptive Preferences in Enhancing and Ending Life, Springer. pp. 69--80. 2013.Suppose that we think it important that people have the chance to enjoy autonomous lives. An obvious corollary of this thought is that people should, if they want it, have control over the time and manner of their deaths, either ending their own lives, or by securing the help of others in doing so. So, generally, and even if we overall think that the practice should not be legalized on other grounds, it looks like common sense to think that considerations of autonomy tell at least somewhat in fa…Read more
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442Disadvantage, Autonomy, and the Continuity TestJournal of Applied Philosophy 31 (3): 254-270. 2014.The Continuity Test is the principle that a proposed distribution of resources is wrong if it treats someone as disadvantaged when they don't see it that way themselves, for example by offering compensation for features that they do not themselves regard as handicaps. This principle — which is most prominently developed in Ronald Dworkin's defence of his theory of distributive justice — is an attractive one for a liberal to endorse as part of her theory of distributive justice and disadvantage. …Read more
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303Forbidden ways of lifePhilosophical Quarterly 58 (233): 618-629. 2008.I examine an objection against autonomy-minded liberalism sometimes made by philosophers such as John Rawls and William Galston, that it rules out ways of life which do not themselves value freedom or autonomy. This objection is incorrect, because one need not value autonomy in order to live an autonomous life. Hence autonomy-minded liberalism need not rule out such ways of life. I suggest a modified objection which does work, namely that autonomy-minded liberalism must rule out ways of life tha…Read more
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373In Defence of Comprehensive LiberalismPhilosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 2 (1): 17-29. 2012.In Liberalism without Perfection Jonathan Quong defends a form of political liberalism; that is, a political philosophy that answers ‘no’ to both the following questions: 1. Must liberal political philosophy be based in some particular ideal of what constitutes a valuable or worthwhile human life, or other metaphysical beliefs? 2. Is it permissible for a liberal state to promote or discourage some activities, ideals, or ways of life on grounds relating to their inherent or intrinsic value, or on…Read more
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901Autonomy and Adaptive PreferencesUtilitas 23 (1): 52-71. 2011.Adaptive preference formation is the unconscious altering of our preferences in light of the options we have available. Jon Elster has argued that this is bad because it undermines our autonomy. I agree, but think that Elster's explanation of why is lacking. So, I draw on a richer account of autonomy to give the following answer. Preferences formed through adaptation are characterized by covert influence (that is, explanations of which an agent herself is necessarily unaware), and covert influen…Read more
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2031Debate: The concept of voluntarinessJournal of Political Philosophy 16 (1). 2007.IN her work on the distinction between freedom and voluntariness, Serena Olsaretti suggests the following definition of voluntary action: an action is voluntary if it is not non-voluntary, and non-voluntary if it is performed because there are no acceptable alternatives, where ‘acceptable’ means conforming to some objective standard (which Olsaretti suggests might be well-being). Olsaretti suggests that ascriptions of responsibility are underwritten by judgments of voluntariness, rather than fre…Read more
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58Autonomy and LiberalismRoutledge. 2010.This book concerns the foundations and implications of a particular form of liberal political theory. Colburn argues that one should see liberalism as a political theory committed to the value of autonomy, understood as consisting in an agent deciding for oneself what is valuable and living life in accordance with that decision. Understanding liberalism this way offers solutions to various problems that beset liberal political theory, on various levels. On the theoretical level, Colburn claims t…Read more
Glasgow, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
Social and Political Philosophy |
Medical Ethics |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Education |