• Requirement
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    We have an argument for rejecting an iterative but not an aggregative approach to the life-saving analogy. This means that, while Chs 7–9 show that certain forms of personal spending are morally defensible, the life-saving analogy still supplies us with grounds for thinking that other forms of personal spending are not. Some of the main practical implications of the resulting view are spelled out. The resulting view is not puritanical, but is still demanding in the constraints it places on livin…Read more
  • Overview
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    The final chapter explains the relationship between the two parts of the book: it explains how Part II has refuted the iterative argument for the Extreme Demand in Part I. It also explains the qualified nature of the conclusion that has been reached: it is a conclusion about the requirements of beneficence, not justice; and it is not the conclusion that morality can never demand extreme personal sacrifices. The implications for direct life-saving action are discussed, and the main strengths of t…Read more
  • Impartiality, Fairness, and Beneficence
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    Showing that the Extreme Demand can be rejected from an appropriately impartial point of view would constitute a decisive objection to it. This would undermine the case for thinking that it could be a demand of either fairness or beneficence. An ‘appropriately’ impartial point of view, for the purposes of this argument, is a point of view of impartial concern for other people’s interests.
  • Objections to Aid
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    Various arguments are often given for thinking that aid agencies do no overall good to the poor. The economic and political grounds for thinking this are surveyed in this chapter. It is argued that the claims needed for a cogent objection to humanitarian aid are too strong to be plausible. And even if they were right, they would at most show that we should be helping in some ways rather than others: they would not show that there is nothing we can do to help.
  • The Rejection of the Extreme Demand
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    Important personal goods – goods such as friendships and commitments to personal projects – are constituted by personal partiality. Such goods clearly ground requirements of beneficence – they supply the interests for the sake of which we should help other people. However, accepting this is not consistent with the Extreme Demand, which requires us to lead altruistically focused lives. So the Extreme Demand should be rejected.
  • Problems of Demandingness
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    Objections to demanding moral outlooks are surveyed. The Extreme Demand does not rely on substantial consequentialist or other theoretical assumptions about the connection between morality and impartiality. Seven requirements for a successful argument against the Extreme Demand are identified. The argument developed in the following chapters will have affinities with arguments developed by Kant and Williams, but will aim to overcome problems with those arguments.
  • Introduction
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
  • Permission
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    How far can the argument against the Extreme Demand be extended? If living one kind of life, or pursuing one kind of good, is better than the alternatives in a significant enough way to ground requirements of beneficence on others to help me, it cannot be wrong for me to refuse to forgo it to help others. Moreover, there are some kinds of lives, and some kinds of goods, that are morally defensible even when there are alternatives that would be no worse for me. This generates neither an ultra-per…Read more
  • Saving Lives
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    Much of the work of aid agencies aims to prevent threats to life, rather than to save lives. And even when an aid agency’s activity does save life, it might be doubted whether my contribution to an agency’s pool of funds will itself benefit anyone significantly. However, whether or not that is true, an argument from the life-saving analogy will still support a collective requirement of beneficence on us as a group; and fairness will require me to contribute to discharging that requirement. The c…Read more
  • The Extreme Demand
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    How far do the demands generated by the life-saving analogy extend? Although the requirement on me to give money to aid agencies is a requirement that I contribute to what we all ought to be doing, that does not mean that, when others are not complying, I am required to do no more than my ‘fair share’. Two further approaches to the life-saving analogy need to be considered: an iterative or an aggregative approach. A case can be given for favouring the iterative approach. But the conclusion to wh…Read more
  • An Argument from Beneficence
    In The Moral Demands of Affluence, Oxford University Press On Demand. 2004.
    The failure to save someone’s life directly is wrong because it is a failure of beneficence. The features that make it a failure of beneficence are also features of not helping people at a distance: they are present when the help we can give is indirect as well as when it is immediate. So not helping people at a distance is wrong too. The methodological challenge of Ch.1 can be answered.
  •  62
    Neutral and Relative Value
    In Iwao Hirose & Jonas Olson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 96-116. 2015.
    This chapter examines the distinction that is sometimes drawn between neutral and relative attributions of value. It asks whether a plausible interpretation can be found for claims about relative value; whether an interpretation can be found for claims about neutral value which best captures the thoughts that people express by using this distinction; whether the distinction can be used to produce a satisfactory way of formulating a relative-value consequentialist theory; and whether a theory of …Read more
  • Neutral and Relative Value
    In Iwao Hirose & Jonas Olson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory, Oxford University Press Usa. 2015.
    This chapter examines the distinction that is sometimes drawn between neutral and relative attributions of value. It asks whether a plausible interpretation can be found for claims about relative value, whether an interpretation can be found for claims about neutral value which best captures the thoughts that people express by using this distinction, whether the distinction can be used to produce a satisfactory way of formulating a relative-value consequentialist theory, and whether a theory of …Read more
  •  11
    Chris Mortensen, Graham Nerlich, Garrett Cullity and Gerard O'Brien.
  • Discriminate Virtue
    Australasian Philosophical Review 6 (2): 180-188. 2022.
    ABSTRACT Glen Pettigrove’s ‘What Virtue Adds to Value’ maintains that sometimes virtue is fundamental in the order of value, and that we should reject the general thesis that the value of our responses depends on their proportionality to the value of the objects toward which they are directed. He argues that this view is needed to account for the moral phenomena surrounding love, forgiveness and ambition. I object that his view is unable to explain the forms of discrimination that distinguish th…Read more
  • Weighing Reasons
    In Daniel Star (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Reasons and Normativity, Oxford University Press. 2018.
  •  42
    There is a difference between acting with a probability of making a difference to who is harmed, and worsening someone’s prospect. This difference is relevant to debates about the ethics of offsetting, since it means that showing that emitting-and-offsetting has the first feature is not a way of showing that it has the second feature. In an earlier paper, we illustrate this difference with an example of a lottery in which you shake the bag from which a ball will be drawn to determine the identit…Read more
  •  74
    Neutral and relative value
    In Iwao Hirose & Jonas Olson (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Value Theory, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 96-116. 2015.
    This Handbook focuses on value theory as it pertains to ethics, broadly construed, and provides a comprehensive overview of contemporary debates pertaining not only to philosophy but also to other disciplines-most notably, political theory...
  • Stupid Goodness
    In Karen Jones & François Schroeter (eds.), The many moral rationalisms, Oxford University Press. 2018.
  •  58
    Participatory Moral Reasons: Their Scope and Strength
    Journal of Practical Ethics. forthcoming.
    A familiar part of ordinary moral thought is this idea: when other people are doing something worthwhile together, there is a reason for you to join in on the same terms as them. Morality does not tell you that you must always do this; but it exerts some pressure on you to join in. Suppose we take this idea seriously: just how should it be developed and applied? More particularly, just which groups and which actions are the ones with respect to which you have participatory moral reasons? And jus…Read more
  • The moral, the personal and the political
    In Igor Primoratz (ed.), Politics and morality, Palgrave-macmillan. 2007.
  •  54
    British Society for Ethical Theory 1998 Conference
    with Alex Miller, Duncan McFarland, James Griffin, R. Jay Wallace, Iain Law, Ralph Wedgwood, Maggie Little, Nick Zangwill, and Elinor Mason
    The Journal of Ethics 2 (2): 189-189. 1998.
  •  145
    Do We Impose Undue Risk When We Emit and Offset? A Reply to Stefansson
    Ethics, Policy and Environment 25 (3): 242-248. 2022.
    ABSTRACT We have previously argued that there are forms of greenhouse gas offsetting for which, when one emits and offsets, one imposes no risk. Orri Stefansson objects that our argument fails to distinguish properly between the people who stand to be harmed by one’s emissions and the people who stand to be benefited by one’s offsetting. We reply by emphasizing the difference between acting with a probability of making a difference to the distribution of harm and acting in a way that worsen’s so…Read more
  •  3
    Précis: Concern, Respect, and Cooperation
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2): 489-494. 2022.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 2, Page 489-494, March 2022.
  •  6
    Foundations, Derivations, Applications: Replies to Bykvist, Arpaly, Steele, and Tenenbaum
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 104 (2): 519-533. 2022.
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Volume 104, Issue 2, Page 519-533, March 2022.
  •  5
    Introduction
    Australasian Philosophical Review 4 (4): 289-292. 2020.
  •  13
    Moral Disagreement, Self-Trust, and Complacency
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1-15. 2021.
    For many of the moral beliefs we hold, we know that other people hold moral beliefs that contradict them. If you think that moral beliefs can be correct or incorrect, what difference should your awareness of others’ disagreement make to your conviction that you, and not those who think otherwise, have the correct belief? Are there circumstances in which an awareness of others’ disagreement should lead you to suspend a moral belief? If so, what are they, and why? This paper argues that three prin…Read more
  •  14
    Liberty, Security, and Fairness
    The Journal of Ethics 25 (2): 141-159. 2021.
    What constraints should be imposed on individual liberty for the sake of protecting our collective security? A helpful approach to answering this question is offered by a theory that grounds political obligation and authority in a moral requirement of fair contribution to mutually beneficial cooperative schemes. This approach encourages us to split the opening question into two—a question of correctness and a question of legitimacy—and generates a detailed set of answers to both subsidiary quest…Read more
  •  37
    Offsetting and Risk Imposition
    Ethics 132 (2): 352-381. 2022.
    Suppose you perform two actions. The first imposes a risk of harm that, on its own, would be excessive; but the second reduces the risk of harm by a corresponding amount. By pairing the two actions together to form a set of actions that is risk-neutral, can you thereby make your overall course of conduct permissible? This question is theoretically interesting, because the answer is apparently: sometimes Yes, sometimes No. It is also practically important, because it bears on the moral status of …Read more