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Value perception, properties, and the primary bearers of valueIn Anna Bergqvist & Robert Cowan (eds.), Evaluative Perception, Oxford University Press. 2018.
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25Propositional and credal accuracy in an indeterministic worldSynthese 199 (3-4): 9391-9410. 2021.It is truism that accuracy is valued. Some deem accuracy to be among the most fundamental values, perhaps the preeminent value, of inquiry. Because of this, accuracy has been the focus of two different, important programs in epistemology. The truthlikeness program pursued the notion of propositional accuracy—an ordering of propositions by closeness to the objective truth of some matter. The epistemic utility program pursued the notion of credal state accuracy—an ordering of credal states by clos…Read more
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16Fitting Attitudes, Finkish Goods, and Value AppearancesOxford Studies in Metaethics 11. 2016.According to Fitting Attitude theorists, for something to possess a certain value it is necessary and sufficient that it be fitting to take a certain attitude to the bearer of that value. This seems obvious for thick evaluative attributes, but less obvious for thin evaluative attributes. This chapter argues that the fitting response to the thin evaluative attributes of states is desire. The good is what it is fitting to desire, the bad what it is fitting to be averse to, and the better what it i…Read more
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548What Accuracy Could Not BeBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 70 (2): 551-580. 2019.Two different programmes are in the business of explicating accuracy—the truthlikeness programme and the epistemic utility programme. Both assume that truth is the goal of inquiry, and that among inquiries that fall short of realizing the goal some get closer to it than others. Truthlikeness theorists have been searching for an account of the accuracy of propositions. Epistemic utility theorists have been searching for an account of the accuracy of credal states. Both assume we can make cognitiv…Read more
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44Speech and Morality: On the Metaethical Implications of Speaking, by Cuneo, Terence: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. xiv + 259, £35 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (3): 602-605. 2016.
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TruthlikenessIn Martin P. Curd (ed.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science, . pp. 478--488. 2008.
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654The Fictionalist’s Attitude ProblemEthical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (5): 485-498. 2007.According to John Mackie, moral talk is representational but its metaphysical presuppositions are wildly implausible. This is the basis of Mackie's now famous error theory: that moral judgments are cognitively meaningful but systematically false. Of course, Mackie went on to recommend various substantive moral judgments, and, in the light of his error theory, that has seemed odd to a lot of folk. Richard Joyce has argued that Mackie's approach can be vindicated by a fictionalist account of moral…Read more
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217Act and value: Expectation and the representability of moral theoriesTheoria 57 (1-2): 42-76. 1991.According to the axiologist the value concepts are basic and the deontic concepts are derivative. This paper addresses two fundamental problems that arise for the axiologist. Firstly, what ought the axiologist o understand by the value of an act? Second, what are the prospects in principle for an axiological representation of moral theories. Can the deontic concepts of any coherent moral theory be represented by an agent-netural axiology: (1) whatever structure those concepts have and (2) whatev…Read more
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69The logic of freedom and responsibilityStudia Logica 41 (n/a): 227. 1982.The aim of this paper is to offer a rigorous explication of statements ascribing ability to agents and to develop the logic of such statements. A world is said to be feasible iff it is compatible with the actual past-and-present. W is a P-world iff W is feasible and P is true in W (where P is a proposition). P is a sufficient condition for Q iff every P world is a Q world. P is a necessary condition for Q iff Q is a sufficient condition forP. Each individual property S is shown to generate a rul…Read more
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12Alan Goldman. Reasons from Within: Desires and Values (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 9 (3): 473-476. 2012.
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37Scrumptious FunctionsGrazer Philosophische Studien 62 (1): 137-156. 2001.The taste of this particular chunk of fresh pineapple, the one which I am just now eating, is scrumptious. That taste is something the chunk has in common with other such chunks, like the one I had a few seconds ago and the one I will have in a few seconds time. The taste of this pineapple chunk is thus a feature, a property, which this and various other chunks of pineapple share. Now, intuitively at least, no purely mathematical entity, like a function, is scrumptious. Hence a property, like th…Read more
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65Recombinant valuesPhilosophical Studies 106 (3). 2001.An attractive admirer of George Bernard Shaw once wrote to him with a not-so modest proposal: ``You have the greatest brain in the world, and I have the most beautiful body; so we ought to produce the most perfect child.'' Shaw replied: ``What if the child inherits my body and your brains?''What if, indeed? Shaw's retort is interesting not because it revealsa grasp of elementary genetics, but rather because it suggests his grasp of an interesting and important principle of axiology. Since the br…Read more
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45Justice, Ethics, and New Zealand Society (edited book)Oxford University Press. 1992.What is sovereignty? Was it ceded to the Crown in the Treaty of Waitangi? If land was unjustly confiscated over a century ago, should it be returned? Is an ecosystem valuable in itself, or only because of its value to people? Does a property right entail a right to destroy? Can collectives (such as tribes) bear moral responsibility? Do they have moral rights? If so, what are the implications for the justice system? These questions are essentially philosophical, yet all thoughtful New Zealanders …Read more
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79Desire and the Good: in search of the right fitIn Deonna J. & Lauria F. (eds.), The Nature of Desire, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.I argue for an evaluative theory of desire—specifically, that to desire something is for it to appear, in some way or other, good. If a desire is a non-doxastic appearance of value then it is no mystery how it can rationalize as well as cause action. The theory is metaphysically neutral—it is compatible with value idealism (that value reduces to desire), with value realism (that it is not so reducible), and with value nihilism (all appearances of value are illusory). Despite this metaphysical ne…Read more
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3The moral case for the legalization of voluntary euthanasiaVictoria University of Wellington Law Review 28 207-24. 1998.
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Reduction: varieties ofIn N. J. Smelser & B. Baltes (eds.), International Encyclopedia of the Social and Behavioral Sciences, . pp. 12. 2001.
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342Moral realism, moral relativism and moral rules (a compatibility argument)Synthese 117 (2): 251-274. 1998.
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265Conditionalization, cogency, and cognitive valueBritish Journal for the Philosophy of Science 48 (4): 533-541. 1997.Why should a Bayesian bother performing an experiment, one the result of which might well upset his own favored credence function? The Ramsey-Good theorem provides a decision theoretic answer. Provided you base your decision on expected utility, and the the experiment is cost-free, performing the experiment and then choosing has at least as much expected utility as choosing without further ado. Furthermore, doing the experiment is strictly preferable just in case at least one possible outcome …Read more
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Control, consequence and compatibilismIn T. Childers (ed.), Between Words and Worlds, Filosofia. pp. 143-56. 2000.
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38The core of the truthmaker research program is that true propositions are made true by appropriate parts of the actual world. This idea seems to give realists their best shot at capturing a robust account of the dependence of truth on the world. For a part of the world to be a truthmaker for a particular it must suffice for, or necessitate, the truth of the proposition. There are two extreme and unsatisfactory truthmaker theories. At one extreme any part of the world (up to and including the who…Read more
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2Truthlikeness and ValueIn Pihlstrom S. (ed.), Approaching Truth: Essays in Honour of Ilkka Niiniluoto, College Publications. pp. 225-40. 2008.
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12Is Science Progressive (review)British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38 (2): 272-276. 1987.
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139Harmony, purity, truthMind 103 (412): 451-472. 1994.David Lewis has argued against the thesis he calls "Desire as Belief", claiming it is incompatible with the fundamentals of evidential decision theory. I show that the argument is unsound, and demonstrate that a version of desire as belief is compatible with a version of causal decision theory.
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