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13Comments on Glasgow, The SolaceJournal of Philosophical Research 48 275-282. 2023.In his book, The Solace: Finding Value in Death through Gratitude for Life, Joshua Glasgow recounts his thoughts as he tried to prepare for a conversation about death with his dying mother, whom he hoped to comfort. After rejecting certain possible sources of solace, he argues that our passing away itself has value, which it derives from the meaningfulness of our lives as a whole, and this value can provide the comfort we may seek. I raise a number of difficulties for and questions about Glasgow…Read more
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42Review of Richard W. Miller: Moral differences: truth, justice, and conscience in a world of conflict (review)Ethics 105 (3): 649-650. 1995.
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Objectivism and relational goodIn Ellen Frankel Paul, Fred Dycus Miller & Jeffrey Paul (eds.), Objectivism, subjectivism, and relativism in ethics, Cambridge University Press. 2008.
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Relational good and the multiplicity problemIn Ernest Sosa & Enrique Villanueva (eds.), Metaethics, Wiley Periodicals. 2009.
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Normativity and the naturalistic fallacyIn Neil Sinclair (ed.), The Naturalistic Fallacy, Cambridge University Press. 2018.
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98Preference-Formation and Personal GoodRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 59 33-64. 2006.As persons, beings with a capacity for autonomy, we face a certain practical task in living out our lives. At any given period we find ourselves with many desires or preferences, yet we have limited resources, and so we cannot satisfy them all. Our limited resources include insufficient economic means, of course; few of us have either the funds or the material provisions to obtain or pursue all that we might like. More significantly, though, we are limited to a single life and one of finite dura…Read more
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31Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence (review)Philosophical Review 115 (4): 536-539. 2006.
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13Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence (review)Philosophical Review 115 (4): 536-539. 2006.
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86Agents and “Shmagents”: An Essay on Agency and NormativityOxford Studies in Metaethics 11. 2016.The idea that normativity and agency are importantly connected goes back at least as far as Kant. But it has recently become associated with a view called “constitutivism.” Perhaps the best-known critique of constitutivism appears in David Enoch’s article, “Agency, Shmagency,” which is the focus of this chapter. His critique of my article, “Agency and the Open Question Argument,” is briefly addressed, explaining why, contrary to his claims, I do not therein defend a form of constitutivism. It is…Read more
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42Ethics, Evil, and FictionPhilosophical Review 108 (3): 439. 1999.In this engagingly written book, Colin McGinn advances a number of related theses, most prominent among them, that moral philosophy is in need of new methodologies in order to get at neglected questions about moral character. The methodology McGinn urges involves drawing upon literature for its deep and intricate portrayals of ethical themes. This would seem a natural approach given McGinn’s substantive views about ethics. He contends that our ethical knowledge is aesthetically mediated ; he spe…Read more
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25XV—Self‐Interest and Self‐SacrificeProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 109 (1pt3): 311-325. 2009.Stephen Darwall has recently suggested that theories which identify a person's good with her own ranking of concerns do not properly delimit the ‘scope’ of welfare, making self‐sacrifice conceptually impossible. But whether a theory of welfare makes self‐sacrifice impossible depends on what self‐sacrifice is. I offer an alternative analysis to Overvold's, explaining why self‐interest and self‐sacrifice need not be opposed, and so why the problems of delimiting the scope of welfare and of allowin…Read more
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Self-Invention and the GoodDissertation, University of Michigan. 1989.In the past fifteen years, ethical theory construction has come under attack from a number of directions. I aim to provide a deeper foundation for these critiques by examining recent efforts to define "good" as a part of theory construction in ethics. I argue that the reforming definitions of "good" offered by John Rawls, Richard Brandt, and most recently, Peter Railton, deprive us of the ability to raise the questions that we as human agents want to be able to raise about what to desire. More g…Read more
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181Moral Realism: A DefencePhilosophical Review 115 (4): 536-539. 2006.Book Information Moral Realism: A Defence. Moral Realism:\nA Defence Russ Shafer-Landau , Oxford : Clarendon Press ,\n2003 , x + 322 , {Â}\textsterling35 ( cloth ) By Russ\nShafer-Landau. Clarendon Press. Oxford. Pp. x + 322.\n{Â}\textsterling35 (cloth:)
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6Mind-Dependence and Moral RealismIn Tristram Colin McPherson & David Plunkett (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics, Routledge. pp. 355-370. 2017.
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