•  2
    There's more to consider than knowledge and belief
    Behavioral and Brain Sciences 44. 2021.
    Phillips et al. present a number of arguments for the premise that knowledge is more basic than belief. Although their arguments are coherent and sound, they do not directly address numerous cases in which belief appears to be a developmental precursor to knowledge. I describe several examples, not necessarily as a direct challenge, but rather to better understand their framework.
  •  3
    The authors argue that children prefer fictions with imaginary worlds. But evidence from the developmental literature challenges this claim. Children's choices of stories and story events show that they often prefer realism. Further, work on the imagination's relation to counterfactual reasoning suggests that an attraction to unrealistic fiction would undermine the imagination's role in helping children understand reality.
  •  77
    People are adept at inferring novel causal relations, even from only a few observations. Prior knowledge about the probability of encountering causal relations of various types and the nature of the mechanisms relating causes and effects plays a crucial role in these inferences. We test a formal account of how this knowledge can be used and acquired, based on analyzing causal induction as Bayesian inference. Five studies explored the predictions of this account with adults and 4-year-olds, using…Read more
  •  12
    Reach tracking reveals dissociable processes underlying cognitive control
    with Christopher D. Erb, Jeff Moher, and Joo-Hyun Song
    Cognition 152 (C): 114-126. 2016.
  •  12
    Children’s developing understanding of the relation between variable causal efficacy and mechanistic complexity
    with Christopher D. Erb and David W. Buchanan
    Cognition 129 (3): 494-500. 2013.
  • Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Volume 9 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2023.
    This is the ninth volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. Since its revival in the 1970s political philosophy has been a vibrant field in philosophy, one that intersects with jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory. OSPP aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in political philosophy and these closely related subfields.
  •  11
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 9 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2023.
    This is Volume 9 of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. It contains papers on democracy, the law, political liberalism, voting, social experimentation, state neutrality, equality and incentives, self-ownership, drugs and prostitution, and Lincoln. Chapters include: “Challenging Democratic Commitments: On Liberal Arguments for Instrumentalism About Democracy” (Daniel Viehoff); “Emotional Abuse and the Law” (Elizabeth Brake); “Practical Political Liberalism” (Caleb Perl); “Beyond the Voting De…Read more
  • Parfit's Case against Subjectivism
    In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 6, Oxford University Press. 2011.
  •  17
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 7 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2021.
    This is the seventh volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The series aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in the vibrant field of political philosophy and its closely related subfields, including jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory.
  •  152
    A robust hybrid theory of well-being
    Philosophical Studies 178 (9): 2829-2851. 2020.
    This paper articulates and defends a novel hybrid account of well-being. We will call our view a Robust Hybrid. We call it robust because it grants a broad and not subservient role to both objective and subjective values. In this paper we assume, we think plausibly but without argument, that there is a significant objective component to well-being. Here we clarify what it takes for an account of well-being to have a subjective component. Roughly, we argue, it must allow that favoring attitudes t…Read more
  •  14
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, vol. 6 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2020.
    This is the sixth volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The series aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in the vibrant field of political philosophy and its closely related subfields, including jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory
  •  48
    Parfit's Case against Subjectivism 1
    Oxford Studies in Metaethics 6. 2011.
    Derek Parfit, in On What Matters, argues that all subjective accounts of normative reasons for action are false. This chapter focuses on his “Agony Argument.” The first premise of the Agony Argument is that we necessarily have current reasons to avoid our own future agony. Its second premise is that subjective accounts cannot vindicate this fact. So, the argument concludes, subjective accounts must be rejected. This chapter accepts the first premise of this argument and that it is valid. The mai…Read more
  •  5
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 6 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2020.
    This is the sixth volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The series aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in the vibrant field of political philosophy and its closely related subfields, including jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory
  •  276
    The Point of Self-Ownership
    In David Schmidtz & Carmen Pavel (eds.), Oxford Handbook on Freedom, Oxford University Press. pp. 124-40. 2018.
    I examine what the point of self-ownership might best be thought to be.
  •  973
    The Ethics of Eating Meat
    Philosophic Exchange 46 (1). 2017.
    I explore the ethical issues involved in eating meat.
  •  279
    How to be a Subjectivist
    In Ruth Chang & Kurt Sylvan (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason, Routledge. forthcoming.
    Subjectivism, desires, reasons, well-being, ethics
  •  459
    "Understanding the Demandingness Objection"
    In Douglas W. Portmore (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    This paper examines possible interpretations of the Demandingness Objection as it is supposed to work against Consequentialist ethical theories.
  •  103
    The Case for Stance Dependent Reasons
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 15 (2). 2019.
    Many philosophers maintain that neither one’s reasons for action nor well-being are ever grounded in facts about what we desire or favor. Yet our reasons to eat a flavor of ice cream we like rather than one we do not seem an obvious counter-example. I argue that there is no getting around such examples and that therefore a fully stance independent account of the grounding of our reasons is implausible. At least in matters of mere taste our “stance” plays a normative role in grounding reasons.
  •  1
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy Volume 5 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2019.
    This is the fifth volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The series aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in the vibrant field of political philosophy and its closely related subfields, including jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory.
  •  3
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, vol. 2 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2016.
    This is the second volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. Since its revival in the 1970s political philosophy has been a vibrant field in philosophy, one that intersects with jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory. OSPP aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in political philosophy and these closely related subfields. The papers in this volume address a range of central topics and represent cutting edge wo…Read more
  •  9
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Volume 3 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2017.
    This is the third volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. The series aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in the vibrant field of political philosophy and its closely related subfields, including jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory.
  •  403
    Against direction of fit accounts of belief and desire
    with Copp
    Analysis 61 (1): 44-53. 2001.
    The authors argue against direction of fit accounts of the distinction between belief and desire.
  •  776
    The impotence of the demandingness objection
    Philosophers' Imprint 7 1-17. 2007.
    Consequentialism, many philosophers have claimed, asks too much of us to be a plausible ethical theory. Indeed, the theory's severe demandingness is often claimed to be its chief flaw. My thesis is that as we come to better understand this objection, we see that, even if it signals or tracks the existence of a real problem for Consequentialism, it cannot itself be a fundamental problem with the view. The objection cannot itself provide good reason to break with Consequentialism, because it must …Read more
  •  14
    Reasons for Action (edited book)
    with David Sobel and Steven Wall
    Cambridge University Press. 2009.
    What are our reasons for acting? Morality purports to give us these reasons, and so do norms of prudence and the laws of society. The theory of practical reason assesses the authority of these potentially competing claims, and for this reason philosophers with a wide range of interests have converged on the topic of reasons for action. This volume contains eleven essays on practical reason by leading and emerging philosophers. Topics include the differences between practical and theoretical rati…Read more
  •  19
    Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy, Volume 1 (edited book)
    Oxford University Press UK. 2015.
    This is the inaugural volume of Oxford Studies in Political Philosophy. Since its revival in the 1970s political philosophy has been a vibrant field in philosophy, one that intersects with jurisprudence, normative economics, political theory in political science departments, and just war theory. OSPP aims to publish some of the best contemporary work in political philosophy and these closely related subfields.
  •  157
    Explanation, Internalism, and Reasons for Action
    Social Philosophy and Policy 18 (2): 218. 2001.
    These days, just about every philosophical debate seems to generate a position labeledinternalism. The debate I will be joining in this essay concerns reasons for action and their connection, or lack of connection, to motivation. The internalist position in this debate posits a certain essential connection between reasons and motivation, while the externalist position denies such a connection. This debate about internalism overlaps an older debate between Humeans and Kantians about the exclusive…Read more