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1Might Forgiveness Be Overrated?International Journal of Philosophical Studies 1-13. forthcoming..
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2The Philosophy of Forgiveness is multi-dimensional and complex. As recent scholarly philosophical works on forgiveness illustrate, incorporating personal, relational, political, ethical, psychological, and religious dimensions into one consistent conception of “forgiveness” is difficult. As part of Vernon Press’s series on the Philosophy of Forgiveness, Explorations of Forgiveness: Personal, Relational, and Religious begins the task of creating a consistent multidimensional account of forgivenes…Read more
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12Supererogation and ForgivenessIn David Heyd (ed.), Handbook of Supererogation, Springer Nature Singapore. pp. 199-219. 2023.Forgiveness is widely considered a paradigm of supererogation: it seems to be morally permissible without being obligatory, and it seems to be almost always admirable and praiseworthy. I want to show that the phenomenon is a bit more complicated, and that many instances are hard to describe as supererogatory. First, I will distinguish forgiveness from some other responses to the transgression (ignoring, excusing, letting go). Second, I will examine the philosophical debate over the question of w…Read more
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5A Defence of Conscientious Objection in Medicine: A Reply to Schuklenk and SavulescuBioethics 30 (5): 358-364. 2015.ABSTRACT In a recent (2015) Bioethics editorial, Udo Schuklenk argues against allowing Canadian doctors to conscientiously object to any new euthanasia procedures approved by Parliament. In this he follows Julian Savulescu's 2006 BMJ paper which argued for the removal of the conscientious objection clause in the 1967 UK Abortion Act. Both authors advance powerful arguments based on the need for uniformity of service and on analogies with reprehensible kinds of personal exemption. In this article…Read more
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1Biography and betrayalZeitschrift Für Ethik Und Moralphilosophie 5 (1): 3-14. 2022.John Bayley was married to Iris Murdoch for 45 years. In the last few years of her life, Murdoch developed Alzheimer’s, and John Bayley wrote a memoir about their life together, including the difficulties of looking after her with the disease. Although the Memoir was generally well-received, some critics called the publication an act of betrayal, because of the intimacy of some of the revelations, because of the public reduction of a great mind to a sick old woman, and especially because of Murd…Read more
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4Teaching Medical Ethics through Medical Law in advanceTeaching Philosophy. forthcoming.Medical ethics is normally taught in a combination of three ways: through discussions of normative theories and principles; through for-and-against debating of topics; or through case studies. I want to argue that a fourth approach might be better, and should be used more: teaching medical ethics through medical law. Medical law is already deeply imbued with ethical concepts, principles and reasons, and allows the discussion of ethics through the “back door,” as it were. The two greatest advanta…Read more
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6Love, Choice, and Taking ResponsibilityIn Simon Cushing (ed.), New Philosophical Essays on Love and Loving, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 87-100. 2021.There is a long-standing philosophical discussion about the relationship between love and choice. The most simplistic versions see love as something one “falls” into, without any choice at all. A more sophisticated account of love would accommodate some degree of indirect choice: I feel an initial interest, and choose to seek her out more. I can also choose to create and sustain the conditions that support love, for example, by avoiding infidelity and long commutes. However, such indirect choice…Read more
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2What if a friend asks me to assist their suicide?Bioethics 36 (2): 218-224. 2021.Bioethics, Volume 36, Issue 2, Page 218-224, February 2022.
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4Love’s Forgiveness: Kierkegaard, Resentment, Humility and Hope: by John Lippitt, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2020, xvi + 236 pp., £51.00 ($63.00) (hbk), ISBN: 978-0-19-886183-6 (review)International Journal of Philosophical Studies 29 (2): 263-268. 2021.Forgiveness is a perennially rich topic in philosophy. It gathers together questions of ethics as well as philosophy of mind, action and emotion; it has analytic and Continental slants, and an impo...
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8Love’s Forgiveness: Kierkegaard, Resentment, Humility and Hope: by John Lippitt, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, 2020, xvi + 236 pp., £51.00 ($63.00) (hbk), ISBN: 978-0-19-886183-6International Journal of Philosophical Studies 29 (2): 263-268. 2021.Forgiveness is a perennially rich topic in philosophy. It gathers together questions of ethics as well as philosophy of mind, action and emotion; it has analytic and Continental slants, and an impo...
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3Why Medical Ethics Should Not be Taught by PhilosophersDiscourse: Learning and Teaching in Philosophical and Religious Studies 5 (1): 50-63. 2005.
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2Cultivating Transferable Skills in Philosophy UndergraduatesDiscourse: Learning and Teaching in Philosophical and Religious Studies 1 (1): 39-51. 2001.
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2Reconceiving Medical Ethics (edited book)Bloomsbury Academic. 2012.This volume of original work comprises a modest challenge, sometimes direct, sometimes implicit, to the mainstream Anglo-American conception of the discipline of medical ethics. It does so not by trying to fill the gaps with exotic minority interest topics, but by re-examining some of the fundamental assumptions of the familiar philosophical arguments, and some of the basic situations that generate the issues. The most important such situation is the encounter between the doctor and the sufferin…Read more
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4Introduction to the Symposium on Existential FlourishingInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 28 (2): 205-312. 2020.Volume 28, Issue 2, May 2020, Page 205-312.
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6Introduction: What Is a Philosophy of Autobiography?In The Philosophy of Autobiography, University of Chicago Press. pp. 1-21. 2015.
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12The Philosophy of Autobiography (edited book)University of Chicago Press. 2015.We are living through a boom in autobiographical writing. Every half-famous celebrity, every politician, every sports hero—even the non-famous, nowadays, pour out pages and pages, Facebook post after Facebook post, about themselves. Literary theorists have noticed, as the genres of “creative nonfiction” and “life writing” have found their purchase in the academy. And of course psychologists have long been interested in self-disclosure. But where have the philosophers been? With this volume, Chri…Read more
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7Special Issue on Recklessness and NegligenceCriminal Law and Philosophy 14 (1): 5-8. 2020.This paper introduces the Special Issue on Recklessness and Negligence. It highlights the main issues and controversies that surround these concepts and then briefly introduces each of the papers that comprise the Special Issue.
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16Divorce, Disorientation, and RemarriageEthical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (3-4): 531-544. 2020.This paper asks three inter-related questions, proceeding chronologically through a divorcee’s experience: is it responsible and rational to make an unconditional marital vow in the first place? does divorce break that unconditional marital vow? And the main question: can the divorcee make a second unconditional marital vow in all moral seriousness? To the last question I answer yes. I argue that the divorce process is so disorienting – to use Amy Harbin’s term – as to transform the divorcee and…Read more
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8Divorce, Disorientation, and RemarriageEthical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (3-4): 531-544. 2020.This paper asks three inter-related questions, proceeding chronologically through a divorcee’s experience: is it responsible and rational to make an unconditional marital vow in the first place? does divorce break that unconditional marital vow? And the main question: can the divorcee make a second unconditional marital vow in all moral seriousness? To the last question I answer yes. I argue that the divorce process is so disorienting – to use Amy Harbin’s term – as to transform the divorcee and…Read more
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14Special Issue on Recklessness and NegligenceCriminal Law and Philosophy 14 (1): 5-8. 2020.This paper introduces the Special Issue on Recklessness and Negligence. It highlights the main issues and controversies that surround these concepts and then briefly introduces each of the papers that comprise the Special Issue.
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9Divorce, Disorientation, and RemarriageEthical Theory and Moral Practice 23 (3-4): 531-544. 2020.This paper asks three inter-related questions, proceeding chronologically through a divorcee’s experience: is it responsible and rational to make an unconditional marital vow in the first place? does divorce break that unconditional marital vow? And the main question: can the divorcee make a second unconditional marital vow in all moral seriousness? To the last question I answer yes. I argue that the divorce process is so disorienting – to use Amy Harbin’s term – as to transform the divorcee and…Read more
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5Selective Conscientious Objection in HealthcareThe New Bioethics 25 (3): 236-247. 2019.Most discussions of conscientious objection in healthcare assume that the objection is universal: a doctor objects to all abortions. I want to investigate selective objections, where a doctor objec...
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5The Conscience Wars; Rethinking the Balance between Religion, Identity, and EqualityThe New Bioethics 25 (3): 286-289. 2019.Volume 25, Issue 3, September 2019, Page 286-289.
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3Reckless EnablingCriminal Law and Philosophy 14 (1): 51-67. 2020.The 2016, the UK Supreme Court case of Jogee confirmed a long-standing convention in English law. In cases where D is assisting or encouraging P to commit an offence, D will only be liable as an accessory for that offence if she intentionally assists or encourages P and if she knows the essential features of the offence. In this paper, I discuss and develop some of the arguments from Sanford Kadish’s 1996 article “Reckless Complicity.” I argue that a special sub-category of complicity, namely ‘e…Read more
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6Moral Philosophy and the ‘Real World’Analytic Teaching and Philosophical Praxis 31 (1): 21-30. 2011.Notoriously, most philosophers write for other philosophers. Most philosophy books are designed for students of philosophy, students who can be assumed to have signed up and remained in the subject voluntarily, and therefore to have a certain interest in the subject and a certain understanding of the point of it all. In this paper I want to consider the philosopher’s engagement with those who, living in the ‘real world’, have had neither interest in nor exposure to philosophy beyond the stereoty…Read more
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11Review of Brake E. and Ferguson L. : Philosophical Foundations of Children’s and Family Law: Oxford: OUP, 2018. Hardcover . €85.00. 368 pp (review)Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21 (3): 759-761. 2018.
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20Regret, Remorse and the Twilight PerspectiveInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 25 (5): 624-634. 2017.I examine the ‘momentous’ choices that one makes early in life – about career or spouse, for example – and I ask what it means to regret such choices at the end of one’s life. I argue that such regrets are almost meaningless because of the difficulty of imaginatively accessing a much earlier self. I then contrast long-term regret to remorse, and argue that the two are qualitatively different experiences because remorse involves another person as victim.
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8Dementia, identity and the role of friendsMedicine, Health Care and Philosophy 21 (2): 255-264. 2018.Ronald Dworkin introduced the example of Margo, who was so severely demented that she could not recognise any family or friends, and could not remember anything of her life. At the same time, however, she seemed full of childish delight. Dworkin also imagines that, before her dementia, Margo signed an advance refusal of life-saving treatment. Now severely demented, she develops pneumonia, easy to treat, but lethal if untreated. Dworkin argues that the advance refusal ought to be heeded and Margo…Read more