•  593
    This book introduces the reader to ethics by examining a current and important debate. During the last fifty years the orthodox position in ethics has been a broadly non-cognitivist one: since there are no moral facts, moral remarks are best understood, not as attempting to describe the world, but as having some other function - such as expressing the attitudes or preferences of the speaker. In recent years this position has been increasingly challenged by moral realists who maintain that there …Read more
  •  489
    On defending deontology
    Ratio 11 (1). 1998.
    This paper comprises three sections. First, we offer a traditional defence of deontology, in the manner of, for example, W.D. Ross (1965). The leading idea of such a defence is that the right is independent of the good. Second, we modify the now standard account of the distinction, in terms of the agent-relative/agentneutral divide, between deontology and consequentialism. (This modification is necessary if indirect consequentialism is to count as a form of consequentialism.) Third, we challenge…Read more
  •  443
    In defence of unconditional forgiveness
    with Eve Garrard
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 103 (1). 2003.
    In this paper, the principal objections to unconditional forgiveness are canvassed, primarily that it fails to take wrongdoing seriously enough, and that it displays a lack of self-respect. It is argued that these objections stem from a mistaken understanding of what forgiveness actually involves, including the erroneous view that forgiveness involves some degree of condoning of the offence, and is incompatible with blaming the offender or punishing him. Two positive reasons for endorsing uncond…Read more
  •  347
    From Darkness into Light? Reflections on Wandering in Darkness
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 4 (3): 123--135. 2012.
  •  264
    significant role for accomplishment thereby admits a ‘Trojan Horse’ (267).1 To abandon hedonism in favour of a conception of well-being that incorporates achievement is to take the first step down a slippery slope toward the collapse of the other two pillars of utilitarian morality: welfarism and consequentialism. We shall argue that Crisp’s arguments do not support these conclusions. We begin with welfarism. Crisp defines it thus: ‘Well-being is the only value. Everything good must be good for …Read more
  •  248
    The making/evidential reason distinction
    with P. Rawling
    Analysis 71 (1): 100-102. 2011.
    Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star have made the following interesting proposal concerning the relation between practical reasons and evidence : Necessarily: A fact F is a reason for you to φ iff F is evidence that you ought to φ We're not sure about this. Although moving from left to right might be OK, the converse is problematic. For example, the fact that your reliable friend told you that you have overriding moral reason to φ is …
  •  219
    Scanlon suggests a buck-passing account of goodness. To say that something is good is not to give a reason to, say, favour it; rather it is to say that there are such reasons. When it comes to wrongness, however, Scanlon rejects a buck-passing account: to say that j ing is wrong is, on his view, to give a sufficient moral reason not to j. Philip Stratton-Lake 2003 argues that Scanlon can evade a redundancy objection against his (Scanlon’s) view of wrongness by adopting a buck-passing account of …Read more
  •  218
    An unconnected Heap of duties?
    Philosophical Quarterly 46 (185): 433-447. 1996.
  •  194
    Value and Agent-Relative Reasons
    Utilitas 7 (1): 31. 1995.
    In recent years the distinction between agent-relative and agent-neutral reasons has been taken by many to play a key role in distinguishing deontology from consequentialism. It is central to all universalist consequentialist theories that value is determined impersonally; the real value of any state of affairs does not depend on the point of view of the agent. No reference, therefore, to the agent or to his or her position in the world need enter into a consequentialist understanding of what ma…Read more
  •  165
    Naturalism and Normativity
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 77 (1). 2003.
    Simon Blackburn can be seen as challenging those committed to sui generis moral facts to explain the supervenience of the moral on the descriptive. We (like perhaps Derek Parfit) hold that normative facts in general are sui generis. We also hold that the normative supervenes on the descriptive, and we here endeavour to answer the generalization of Blackburn's challenge. In the course of pursuing this answer, we suggest that Frank Jackson's descriptivism rests on a conception of properties inappr…Read more
  •  154
    Unprincipled Ethics
    In Brad Hooker & Margaret Olivia Little (eds.), Moral Particularism, Clarendon Press. 1988.
  •  150
    Some of the virtues have a very stable place in our understanding of goodness – beneficence and courage are unlikely ever to lose their high standing. But other virtues have something like a life cycle: they move from a marginal status to to a central one, and sometimes they move back again to the margins, or even beyond the domain of virtue altogether. Chastity is one example of this; humility is another. There was a period in which humility wasn’t a virtue at all (see Aristotle on the great-so…Read more
  •  137
    Deontology
    with Florida State University and Piers Rawling
    In David Copp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Ethical Theory, Oup Usa. 2007.
  •  133
    Conditional and Conditioned Reasons
    Utilitas 14 (2): 240. 2002.
    This paper is a brief reponse to some of Douglas Portmore's criticisms of our version of the agent-relative/agent-neutral distinction
  •  121
  •  110
    Honoring and promoting values
    Ethics 102 (4): 835-843. 1992.
  •  109
    Deontology and value
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 47 197-208. 2000.
    Integration and coherence are central values in human existence. It would be a serious objection to any proposed way of life that it led to us being alienated or cut off from others or from some importan part of ourselves. Morality, with the strenuous demands it makes on us, is one area in which alienation is both particularly threatening and peculiarly undesirable. If morality cuts us off from some important part of ourselves then it appears unattractive, and if it cuts us off from others then …Read more
  •  101
    Contours of the Practical
    In David Bakhurst, Margaret Olivia Little & Brad Hooker (eds.), Thinking About Reasons: Themes From the Philosophy of Jonathan Dancy, Oxford University Press. pp. 240. 2013.
  •  87
    Mapping moral motivation
    with Eve Garrard
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1 (1): 45-59. 1998.
    In this paper we defend a version of moral internalism and a cognitivist account of motivation against recent criticisms. The internalist thesis we espouse claims that, if an agent believes she has reason to A, then she is motivated to A. Discussion of counter-examples has been clouded by the absence of a clear account of the nature of motivation. While we can only begin to provide such an account in this paper, we do enough to show that our version of internalism can be defended against putativ…Read more
  •  85
    Forgiving for good
    with Eve Garrard
    The Philosophers' Magazine 52 (52): 43-48. 2011.
    The repentant offender has placed himself on the side of right, so to speak – he now stands with the victim against his own previous bad behaviour, which he now rejects. He’s a proper recipient for the gift of forgiveness. It can be morally appropriate to wipe the slate clean for him. But the unrepentant offender has undergone no such change. Why should we wipe the slate clean for such a person?
  •  70
    Benefits, holism, and the aggregation of value
    Social Philosophy and Policy 26 (1): 354-374. 2009.
    We reject Moorean holism about value—the view that the value of the whole does not equal the sum of the values of its parts. We propose an alternative aggregative holism according to which the value of a state of affairs is the sum of the values of its constituent states. But these constituents must be evaluated in situ
  •  64
  •  60
    Review of Michael Huemer, Ethical Intuitionism (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2006 (9). 2006.
  •  56
    Speak No Evil?1
    with Eve Garrard
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 36 (1): 1-17. 2012.
  •  52
    Reparation and Atonement
    Religious Studies 28 (2). 1992.
    Richard Swinburne (in his "Responsibility and Atonement") argues for a sacrificial version of the Atonement, in which the individual penitent offers the life of Christ to God in (partial) reparation for his sins. I argue that any version of this account is both conceptually incoherent and morally unsatisfying and offer in its place a version of the exemplary theory of the Atonement which, I claim, meets the conditions he lays down for any satisfactory account
  •  52