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2466Why Aren’t I Part of a Whale?Analysis 83 (2): 227-234. 2023.We start by presenting three different views that jointly imply that every person has many conscious beings in their immediate vicinity, and that the number greatly varies from person to person. We then present and assess an argument to the conclusion that how confident someone should be in these views should sensitively depend on how massive they happen to be. According to the argument, sometimes irreducibly de se observations can be powerful evidence for or against believing in metaphysical th…Read more
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483Voices from Another World: Must We Respect the Interests of People Who Do Not, and Will Never, Exist?Ethics 117 (3): 498-523. 2007.This is about the rights and wrongs of bringing people into existence. In a nutshell: sometimes what matters is not what would have happened to you, but what would have happened to the person who would have been in your position, even if that person never actually exists.
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251Should We Wish Well to All?Philosophical Review 125 (4): 451-472. 2016.Some moral theories tell you, in some situations in which you are interacting with a group of people, to avoid acting in the way that is expectedly best for everybody. This essay argues that such theories are mistaken. Go ahead and do what is expectedly best for everybody. The argument is based on the thought that when interacting with an individual it is fine for you to act in the expected interests of the individual and that many interactions with individuals may compose an interaction with a …Read more
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232
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217It is natural to distinguish between objective and subjective senses of
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158Self-Bias, Time-Bias, and the Metaphysics of Self and TimeJournal of Philosophy 104 (7): 350-373. 2007.This is about the metaphysics of the self and ethical egoism. It can serve as a preview for my manuscript-in-progress below.
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147Realism About Tense and PerspectivePhilosophy Compass 5 (9): 760-769. 2010.On one view of time past, present and future things exist, but their being past, present or future does not consist in their standing in before‐ and after‐relations to other things. So, for example, the event of the signing of the Magna Carta is past, and its being so does not consist in, or reduce to, its coming before the events of 2010.In this paper I discuss arguments for and against this view and view in its near vicinity, perspectival realism. I suggest that perspectival realism is a bette…Read more
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110The ethics of morphingPhilosophical Studies 145 (1). 2009.Here's one piece of practical reasoning: "If I do this then a person will reap some benefits and suffer some costs. On balance, the benefits outweigh the costs. So I ought to do it." Here's another: "If I do this then one person will reap some benefits and another will suffer some costs. On balance, the benefits to the one person outweigh the costs to the other. So I ought to do it." Many influential philosophers say that there is something dubious about the second piece of reasoning. They say t…Read more
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108Rationality and the distant needyPhilosophy and Public Affairs 35 (2). 2007.This is my argument for the claim that morality is very demanding indeed. In a nutshell: being consistent is harder than you think.
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104A puzzle about other-directed time-biasAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (2). 2008.Should we be time-biased on behalf of other people? 'Sometimes yes, sometimes no'—it is tempting to answer. But this is not right. On pain of irrationality, we cannot be too selective about when we are time-biased on behalf of other people.
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80On Myself, and Other, Less Important, SubjectsDissertation, Princeton University. 2003.In this dissertation I spell out, and make a case for, egocentric presentism, a view about what it is for a thing to be me. I argue that there are benefits associated with adopting this view. ;The chief benefit comes in the sphere of ethics. Many of us, when we think about what to do, feel a particular kind of ambivalence. On the one hand we are moved by an impartial concern for the greater good. We feel the force of considerations of the form: 'all things considered, doing...will make things be…Read more
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64The Limits of KindnessOxford University Press. 2013.Caspar Hare presents a bold and original approach to questions of what we ought to do, and why we ought to do it. He breaks with tradition to argue that we can tackle difficult problems in normative ethics by starting with a principle that is humble and uncontroversial. Being moral involves wanting particular other people to be better off
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57Bradley , Ben . Well-Being and Death . Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Pp. 224. $60.00 (cloth) (review)Ethics 121 (4): 797-799. 2011.
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35Review of Saul Smilansky, Ten Moral Paradoxes (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2009 (5). 2009.
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30Time – The Emotional AsymmetryIn Adrian Bardon & Heather Dyke (eds.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Time, Wiley-blackwell. 2013.In this chapter on time‐the emotional asymmetry, the author addresses two questions concerning future‐bias. The first is with respect to the sorts of things are people future‐biased. Do people want all things that they regard as bad to be in the past, or just some of them? Second, are people justified in being future‐biased? The second question has received a good deal of attention from philosophers. The author aims to survey different answers to the question, and to give a sense of how things p…Read more
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232 Time- Bias and the Metaphysics of TimeIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 9-18. 2003.
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195 A Problem about Personal Identity over TimeIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 57-72. 2003.
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164 ClarificationsIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 41-56. 2003.
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15On Myself, and Other, Less Important SubjectsPrinceton University Press. 2009.Caspar Hare makes an original and compelling case for "egocentric presentism," a view about the nature of first-person experience, about what happens when we see things from our own particular point of view. A natural thought about our first-person experience is that "all and only the things of which I am aware are present to me." Hare, however, goes one step further and claims, counterintuitively, that the thought should instead be that "all and only the things of which I am aware are present."…Read more
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141 Self- Interest and Self- ImportanceIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 1-8. 2003.
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13IndexIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 111-114. 2003.
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12ReferencesIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 107-110. 2003.
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116 The SolutionIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 73-90. 2003.
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11NotesIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 99-106. 2003.
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117 Skepticism and HumilityIn On Myself, and Other, Less Important, Subjects, Princeton University Press. pp. 91-98. 2003.