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2Coherentist Epistemology and Moral TheoryIn Walter Sinnott-Armstrong & Mark Timmons (eds.), Moral knowledge?: new readings in moral epistemology, Oxford University Press. 1996.Moral knowledge, to the extent anyone has it, is as much a matter of knowing how -- how to act, react, feel and reflect appropriately -- as it is a matter of knowing that -- that injustice is wrong, courage is valuable, and care is due. Such knowledge is embodied in a range of capacities, abilities, and skills that are not acquired simply by learning that certain things are morally required or forbidden or that certain abilities and skills are important.1 To lose sight of this fact, to focus exc…Read more
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1Normative EthicsIn Hugh LaFollette - (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, Blackwell. 2000.
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116Much work in recent moral psychology attempts to spell out what it is for a desire to be an agent’s own, or, as it is often put, what it means for an agent to be identified with certain of her desires rather than others. The aim of such work varies. Some suggest that an account of what it is for a desire to be an agent’s own provides us with an account of what it is for an agent to value something. Others suggest that an account of what it is for a desire to be an agent’s own tells us what it is…Read more
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Moral RealismIn David Copp (ed.), The Oxford handbook of ethical theory, Oxford University Press. 2006.
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3Moral RealismIn David Copp (ed.), The Oxford handbook of ethical theory, Oxford University Press. 2006.This chapter explores the attractions, problems, and prospects of moral realism. Special attention is given to Moore’s Open Question Argument, internalism, noncognitivism, and error theories. The final section sketches a research program for moral realism that takes on and pursues Hume’s aim of explaining the ability to think in moral, and more broadly, normative, terms in a way that shows that the successful exercise of this ability is neither metaphysically nor epistemically mysterious.
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1Hume on the Artificial VirtuesIn Paul Russell (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of David Hume, Oxford University Press. 2016.In the Treatise, Hume offers a detailed account of what he calls the artificial virtues: of justice, of fidelity to promises, and of allegiance to political authority, among others. According to virtually everyone, Hume’s discussion of these artificial virtues—and especially of the conventions on which he argues they depend—is inspired, rich, and subtle. At the same time, also according to virtually everyone, Hume’s discussion is deeply puzzling. Indeed, many have thought the puzzles so deep as …Read more
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Rationality, Rules, and Ideals: Critical Essays on Bernard Gert’s Moral Theory (edited book)Rowman and Littlefield. 2002.
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5ContractarianismIn Hugh LaFollette - (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, Blackwell. pp. 332-353. 2000.As a general approach to moral and political thought, contractarianism has had a long and distinguished history – its roots are easily traced as far back as Plato's Republic, where Glaucon advanced it as a view of justice, and its influential representatives include Grotius, Pufendorf, Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, Hume, and Kant. In various ways, to various purposes, and against the background of various assumptions, each of these philosophers offered contractarian arguments for the views they defen…Read more
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2PPE as an intellectual enterpriseIn Chris Melenovsky (ed.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics, Routledge. 2022.
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Hume on Practical Morality and Inert ReasonIn Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume Iii, Oxford University Press. 2008.
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65Real world theory, complacency, and aspirationPhilosophical Studies 178 (7): 2365-2384. 2020.Just how realistic about human nature and real possibilities must a theory of justice, or a moral theory, more generally, be? Lines have been drawn, with some holding that idealizing away from reality is indispensable and others maintaining that utopian thinking is not just useless but irrelevant. In Utopophobia David Estlund defends the value of utopian theory. At his most modest, Estlund claims that it is a legitimate approach, not ruled out of court by anti-idealists on entirely inadequate gr…Read more
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46Do normative facts matter... To what is feasible?Social Philosophy and Policy 33 (1-2): 434-456. 2016.
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50On ‘Cooperation’Analyse & Kritik 40 (1): 107-130. 2018.The term ‘cooperation’ is widely used in social and political and biological and economic theory. Perhaps for this reason, the term takes on a variety of meanings and it is not always clear in many settings what aspect of an interaction is being described. This paper has the modest aim of sorting through some of this variety of meanings; and exploring, against that background, when and why cooperation might be of value, or be required, or constitute a virtue.
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16The Natural Philosophy of Leibniz. K. Okruhlik, J. Brown (review)Philosophy of Science 56 (1): 173-174. 1989.
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1Realism and Moral EpistemologyDissertation, University of Pittsburgh. 1986.From Plato to G. E. Moore, moral theorists commonly and confidently embraced moral realism: they simply assumed that at least some moral claims were true. Until this century, their shared assumption was relatively unproblematic. Recently, however, moral realism has come under severe attack, and along the way moral theory itself has become suspect. Against moral realism anti-realists have maintained that all moral claims are cognitively empty , or that all moral claims are false . These positions…Read more
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1Moral Theory and Explanatory Impotence In: Sayre-McCord, G. edIn Essays on moral realism, Cornell University Press. pp. 256--281. 1988.
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102Hume and the Bauhaus Theory of EthicsMidwest Studies in Philosophy 20 (1): 280-298. 1995.Appeals to utility permeate Hume's account of morality. He maintains, for which have this tendency to the public advantage and loss" (T. 578-79).
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15Coherence and Models for Moral TheorizingPacific Philosophical Quarterly 66 (1-2): 170-190. 1985.
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Leibniz, Materialism, and the Relational Account of Space and TimeStudia Leibnitiana 16 (n/a): 204. 1984.Leibniz' Verteidigung einer relationalen Auffassung von Raum und Zeit im Briefwechsel mit Clarke nimmt in keiner Weise Bezug auf Monaden. Infolgedessen haben einige Leibniz-Interpreten angenommen, Leibniz' relationale Auffassung von Raum und Zeit könne -wenn man sie hinreichend abstrakt versteht -von seiner außerordentlich mentalistischen Ontologie losgelöst werde. In der Tat hat der Gedanke einer Trennung der beiden Lehren etwas Bestechendes, da die relationale Auffassung plausibler erscheint a…Read more
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118Functional explanations and reasons as causesPhilosophical Perspectives 3 137-164. 1989.If we assume that a conceptual connection does hold between reasons and action, the arguments for both theses are strikingly simple. In defense of the first thesis, all that need be added is Hume's Principle: between cause and effect only a (logically) contingent relation holds. For given Hume's Principle, and the conceptual connection (which after all is not a contingent one), it follows that no causal connection holds. In defense of the second thesis, all that need be added is one assumption a…Read more
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ContractarianismIn Hugh LaFollette - (ed.), The Blackwell Guide to Ethical Theory, Blackwell. pp. 247-267. 2000.
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18Hume: Moral Philosophy (edited book)Hackett Publishing Company. 2006.A genuine understanding of Hume's extraordinarily rich, important, and influential moral philosophy requires familiarity with all of his writings on vice and virtue, the passions, the will, and even judgments of beauty--and that means familiarity not only with large portions of _A Treatise of Human Nature, but also with An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals_ and many of his essays as well. This volume is the one truly comprehensive collection of Hume's work on all of these topics. Geoff…Read more
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University of North Carolina, Chapel HillDepartment of PhilosophyMorehead-Cain Alumni Distinguished Professor
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University of EdinburghRegular Faculty (Part-time)
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Epistemology |
Meta-Ethics |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |