University of Notre Dame
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 1981
New York City, New York, United States of America
  •  20
    Virtue Ethics and Moral Relativism
    In Steven D. Hales (ed.), A Companion to Relativism, Wiley‐blackwell. 2011.
    This chapter contains sections titled: Abstract Introduction The Confrontation of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics and Moral Relativism Foot's Challenge MacIntyre's Tradition ‐ Based Defense of the Virtues Nussbaum's Non ‐ Relative Virtues The Ethical Naturalism of Foot and Hursthouse References.
  •  1
    Ethical Thought in Indian Buddhism
    In Steven M. Emmanuel (ed.), A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy, Wiley. 2013.
    Buddhist thought flourished in India for well over a thousand years after the life of the Buddha around the fifth century BCE. During this time there were many diverse developments, but for the purpose of the overview in this chapter, two central traditions will be featured. The first centers on the original teaching of the Buddha as represented in a set of texts written in Pāli called the “Three Baskets”. The second tradition is rooted in a set of texts written in Sanskrit called the “Perfectio…Read more
  •  43
    Book reviews (review)
    with Zain Ali, Max Charlesworth, Hans-Georg Moeller, Shalom Goldman, Dmitry A. Olshansky, Sor-Hoon Tan, and Patrick Hutchings
    Sophia 44 (2): 71-87. 2005.
  • Virtue and nature
    In Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Dycus Miller & Jeffrey Paul (eds.), Objectivism, subjectivism, and relativism in ethics, Cambridge University Press. 2008.
  •  4
    Friendship, Altruism, and Morality (review)
    International Philosophical Quarterly 22 (1): 101-104. 1982.
  •  5
    It is often observed that there is little or no moral philosophy in classical Indian Buddhist thought. This is sometimes believed to be surprising since obviously there is an ethical teaching in Buddhism and clearly there are other forms of Buddhist philosophy. In my view, there is something that can plausibly be called moral philosophy in Indian Buddhism, but it is not quite what many people have expected because they have approached the issue from a specific understanding of philosophy that is…Read more
  •  9
    "The book defends the thesis that the concept of self-cultivation philosophy is an informative interpretive framework for comprehending and reflecting on several philosophical outlooks in India, the Greco-Roman world and China. On the basis of an understanding of human nature and the place of human beings in the world, self-cultivation philosophies maintain that our lives can and should be substantially transformed from what is judged to be a problematic, untutored condition of human beings, our…Read more
  •  7
    Self-Worth and Moral Knowledge
    The Paideia Archive: Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 44 88-95. 1998.
    I argue that persons are unlikely to have moral knowledge insofar as they lack certain moral virtues; that persons are commonly deficient in these virtues, and hence that they are regularly unlikely to have adequate moral knowledge. I propose a version of this argument that employs a broad conception of self-worth, a virtue found in a wide range of moral traditions that suppose a person would have an appropriate sense of self-worth in the face of tendencies both to overestimate and underestimate…Read more
  •  11
    Moral Relevance and Moral Conflict, by James D. Wallace (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 51 (2): 478-481. 1991.
  •  238
    Moral relativism
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2015.
    Moral relativism is an important topic in metaethics. It is also widely discussed outside philosophy (for example, by political and religious leaders), and it is controversial among philosophers and nonphilosophers alike. This is perhaps not surprising in view of recent evidence that people's intuitions about moral relativism vary widely. Though many philosophers are quite critical of moral relativism, there are several contemporary philosophers who defend forms of it. These include such promine…Read more
  •  19
    Is It Ever Right to Do Wrong? (review)
    Hastings Center Report 25 (3): 48-49. 2012.
  •  3
    Kane, Robert
    Ethics 122 (2): 425-430. 2012.
  •  5
    Afer Kant (review)
    Social Theory and Practice 22 (1): 105-129. 1996.
  •  71
    Can moral disagreements be rationally resolved? Can universal human rights be defended in face of moral disagreements? The problem of moral disagreement is one of the central problems in moral thinking. It also provides a stimulating stepping-stone to some of the perennial problems of philosophy, such as relativism, scepticism, and objectivity. _Moral Disagreements_ is the first anthology to bring together classic and contemporary readings on this key topic. Clearly divided into five parts; The …Read more
  • The topic of the dissertation is C. I. Lewis' theory of empirical knowledge in Chapters VII and VIII of An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation. I begin by discussing Lewis' purpose in developing this theory. I argue, positively, that his principal aim was to explain the role of sense-experience in our knowledge of the physical world, and negatively, that his aim was not primarily either to clarify the meaning of our epistemic concepts or to refute skepticism . ;Lewis' theory is plainly foundatio…Read more
  •  2
    HOOKER, B. and LITTLE, M.(eds.)-Moral Particularism
    Philosophical Books 43 (4): 310-311. 2002.
  •  99
    Philosophy of the Buddha is a philosophical introduction to the teaching of the Buddha. It carefully guides readers through the basic ideas and practices of the Buddha, including kamma , rebirth, the not-self doctrine, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, ethics, meditation, non-attachment, and Nibbâna . The book includes an account of the life of the Buddha as well as comparisons of his teaching with practical and theoretical aspects of some Western philosophical outlooks, both ancient an…Read more
  •  79
    Our lives are such that moral wrongdoing is sometimes inescapable for us. We have moral responsibilities to persons which may conflict and which it is wrong to violate even when they do conflict. Christopher W. Gowans argues that we must accept this conclusion if we are to make sense of our moral experience and the way in which persons are valuable to us. In defending this position, he critically examines the recent moral dilemmas debate. He maintains that what is important in this debate is not…Read more
  •  51
    Moral Virtue and the Epistemology of Disagreement
    Philosophical Topics 38 (2): 39-57. 2010.
    The paper is a defense of the thesis that there are situations in which morally virtuous persons who are epistemic peers may disagree about what to do without either person being rationally required to change his or her judgment (a version of the Steadfast position in the epistemology of disagreement debate). The argument is based in part on similarities between decisions of virtuous agents and other practical decisions such as a baseball manager’s decision to change pitchers during a game. In b…Read more
  •  4
    Kant’s Impure Ethics: From Rational Beings to Human Beings (review)
    International Philosophical Quarterly 41 (3): 363-369. 2001.
  •  3
    Frege (review)
    International Philosophical Quarterly 23 (1): 99-101. 1983.
  •  2
    The Value of Humanity in Kant’s Moral Theory—Richard Dean (review)
    International Philosophical Quarterly 48 (1): 107-109. 2008.
  •  20
    The first book of its kind, Buddhist Moral Philosophy: An Introduction introduces the reader to contemporary philosophical interpretations and analyses of Buddhist ethics. It begins with a survey of traditional Buddhist ethical thought and practice, mainly in the Pali Canon and early Mahāyāna schools, and an account of the emergence of Buddhist moral philosophy as a distinct discipline in the modern world. It then examines recent debates about karma, rebirth and nirvana, well-being, normative et…Read more
  •  21
    Review of Samuel J. Kerstein, Kant's Search for the Supreme Principle of Morality (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2002 (11). 2002.
  •  1
    I argue that the Buddha did not discuss the free will and determinism problem because he only considered issues relating to overcoming suffering and his teaching about this did not raise the problem. As represented in the Nikāyas, the heart of his teaching was an empirically based account of the causes of suffering and how to modify these to end suffering. It was primarily a practical teaching about how to achieve this goal, more a craft knowledge than a philosophical theory of causality. Simila…Read more