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The child's right to an open futureIn Randall Curren (ed.), Philosophy of Education: An Anthology, Wiley-blackwell. 2006.
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A discourse on gradingPhilosophy of Education: Anthology. forthcoming.
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The Grounds of Political LegitimacyOxford University Press. 2023.Political decisions have the potential to greatly impact our lives. Think of decisions in relation to abortion or climate change, for example. This makes political legitimacy an important normative concern. But what makes political decisions legitimate? Are they legitimate in virtue of having support from the citizens? Democratic conceptions of political legitimacy answer in the affirmative. Such conceptions righly highlight that legitimate political decision-making must be sensitive to disagree…Read more
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What is a child?Ethics 109 (4). 1999.
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Fellow Creatures: Our Obligations to the Other AnimalsOxford University Press. 2018.
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Liberalism as a way of lifePrinceton University Press. 2024.
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Hijacked: How Neoliberalism Turned the Work Ethic against Workers and How Workers Can Take It BackCambridge University Press. 2023.What is the work ethic? Does it justify policies that promote the wealth and power of the One Percent at workers' expense? Or does it advance policies that promote workers' dignity and standing? Hijacked explores how the history of political economy has been a contest between these two ideas about whom the work ethic is supposed to serve. Today's neoliberal ideology deploys the work ethic on behalf of the One Percent. However, workers and their advocates have long used the work ethic on behalf o…Read more
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Equalized Odds is a Requirement of Algorithmic FairnessSynthese 201 (3). 2023.
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On What Matters: Two-Volume SetOxford University Press. 2001.
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Reasons and PersonsOxford University Press. 1984.Challenging, with several powerful arguments, some of our deepest beliefs about rationality, morality, and personal identity, Parfit claims that we have a false view about our own nature. It is often rational to act against our own best interersts, he argues, and most of us have moral views that are self-defeating. We often act wrongly, although we know there will be no one with serious grounds for complaint, and when we consider future generations it is very hard to avoid conclusions that most …Read more
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The sources of normativityCambridge University Press. 1996.Ethical concepts are, or purport to be, normative. They make claims on us: they command, oblige, recommend, or guide. Or at least when we invoke them, we make claims on one another; but where does their authority over us - or ours over one another - come from? Christine Korsgaard identifies four accounts of the source of normativity that have been advocated by modern moral philosophers: voluntarism, realism, reflective endorsement, and the appeal to autonomy. She traces their history, showing ho…Read more
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Self-constitution: agency, identity, and integrityOxford University Press. 2009.Agency and identity -- Necessitation -- Acts and actions -- Aristotle and Kant -- Agency and practical identity -- The metaphysics of normativity -- Constitutive standards -- The constitution of life -- In defense of teleology -- The paradox of self-constitution -- Formal and substantive principles of reason -- Formal versus substantive -- Testing versus weighing -- Maximizing and prudence -- Practical reason and the unity of the will -- The empiricist account of normativity -- The rationalist a…Read more
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The Problem of PunishmentCambridge University Press. 2008.In this book, David Boonin examines the problem of punishment, and particularly the problem of explaining why it is morally permissible for the state to treat those who break the law in ways that would be wrong to treat those who do not? Boonin argues that there is no satisfactory solution to this problem and that the practice of legal punishment should therefore be abolished. Providing a detailed account of the nature of punishment and the problems that it generates, he offers a comprehensive a…Read more
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Wittgenstein's place in twentieth-century analytic philosophyBlackwell. 1996.
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Artificial Intelligence, Values, and AlignmentMinds and Machines 30 (3): 411-437. 2020.This paper looks at philosophical questions that arise in the context of AI alignment. It defends three propositions. First, normative and technical aspects of the AI alignment problem are interrelated, creating space for productive engagement between people working in both domains. Second, it is important to be clear about the goal of alignment. There are significant differences between AI that aligns with instructions, intentions, revealed preferences, ideal preferences, interests and values. …Read more
Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Information Ethics |
Epistemology |
Value Theory |