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Multiple Universes and Self-Locating EvidencePhilosophical Review 131 (3): 241-294. 2022.Is the fact that our universe contains fine-tuned life evidence that we live in a multiverse? Ian Hacking and Roger White influentially argue that it is not. We approach this question through a systematic framework for self-locating epistemology. As it turns out, leading approaches to self-locating evidence agree that the fact that our own universe contains fine-tuned life indeed confirms the existence of a multiverse. This convergence is no accident: we present two theorems showing that, in thi…Read more
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Self‐prediction in practical reasoning: Its role and limitsNoûs 55 (4): 825-841. 2021.Are predictions about how one will freely and intentionally behave in the future ever relevant to how one ought to behave? There is good reason to think they are. As imperfect agents, we have responsibilities of self-management, which seem to require that we take account of the predictable ways we're liable to go wrong. I defend this conclusion against certain objections to the effect that incorporating predictions concerning one's voluntary conduct into one's practical reasoning amounts to evad…Read more
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A risky challenge for intransitive preferencesNoûs. forthcoming.Philosophers have spent a great deal of time debating whether intransitive preferences can be rational. I present a risky decision that poses a challenge for the defender of intransitivity. The defender of intransitivity faces a trilemma and must either: (i) reject the rationality of intransitive preferences, (ii) deny State-wise Dominance, or (iii) accept the bizarre verdict that you can be required to pay to relabel the tickets of a fair lottery. If we take the first horn, then we have a synch…Read more
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Longtermists claim that what we ought to do is mainly determined by how our actions might affect the very long-run future. A natural objection to longtermism is that these effects may be nearly impossible to predict -- perhaps so close to impossible that, despite the astronomical importance of the far future, the expected value of our present actions is mainly determined by near-term considerations. This paper aims to precisify and evaluate one version of this epistemic objection to longtermism.…Read more
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The Asymmetry, Uncertainty, and the Long TermPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research (2): 470-500. 2019.The asymmetry is the view in population ethics that, while we ought to avoid creating additional bad lives, there is no requirement to create additional good ones. The question is how to embed this intuitively compelling view in a more complete normative theory, and in particular one that treats uncertainty in a plausible way. While arguing against existing approaches, I present new and general principles for thinking about welfarist choice under uncertainty. Together, these reduce arbitrary cho…Read more
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Too Easy, Too Good, Too Late?Philosophers' Imprint 23 (1). 2023.Plausibly, one important part of a good life is doing work that makes a contribution, or a positive difference to the world. In this paper, however, I explore contribution pessimism, the view that people will not always have adequate opportunities for making contributions. I distinguish between three interestingly different and at least initially plausible reasons why this view might be true: in slogan form, things might become too easy, they might become too good, or we might be too late. Now, …Read more
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Unfinished BusinessPhilosophers' Imprint 23 (1). 2023.According to an intriguing though somewhat enigmatic line of thought first proposed by Jonathan Bennett, if humanity went extinct any time soon this would be unfortunate because important business would be left unfinished. This line of thought remains largely unexplored. I offer an interpretation of the idea that captures its intuitive appeal, is consistent with plausible constraints, and makes it non-redundant to other views in the literature. The resulting view contrasts with a welfare-promoti…Read more
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Utils and ShmutilsEthics 131 (3): 571-599. 2021.Matthew Adler's Measuring Social Welfare is an introduction to the social welfare function (SWF) methodology. This essay questions some ideas at the core of the SWF methodology having to do with the relation between the SWF and the measure of well-being. The facts about individual well-being do not single out a particular scale on which well-being must be measured. As with physical quantities, there are multiple scales that can be used to represent the same information about well-being; no one s…Read more
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The Paralysis ArgumentPhilosophers' Imprint 21 (15). 2021.Many everyday actions have major but unforeseeable long-term consequences. Some argue that this fact poses a serious problem for consequentialist moral theories. We argue that the problem for non-consequentialists is greater still. Standard non-consequentialist constraints on doing harm combined with the long-run impacts of everyday actions entail, absurdly, that we should try to do as little as possible. We call this the Paralysis Argument. After laying out the argument, we consider and respond…Read more
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Consequentialism and Collective ActionEthics 130 (4): 530-554. 2020.Many consequentialists argue that you ought to do your part in collective action problems like climate change mitigation and ending factory farming because (i) all such problems are triggering cases, in which there is a threshold number of people such that the outcome will be worse if at least that many people act in a given way than if fewer do, and (ii) doing your part in a triggering case maximises expected value. I show that both (i) and (ii) are false: Some triggering cases cannot be solved…Read more
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Risk aversion and the long runEthics 129 (2): 230-253. 2018.This article argues that Lara Buchak’s risk-weighted expected utility (REU) theory fails to offer a true alternative to expected utility theory. Under commonly held assumptions about dynamic choice and the framing of decision problems, rational agents are guided by their attitudes to temporally extended courses of action. If so, REU theory makes approximately the same recommendations as expected utility theory. Being more permissive about dynamic choice or framing, however, undermines the theory…Read more
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University of OxfordFaculty of Philosophy, Wolfson College
Global Priorities InstituteResearch Fellow
Oxford, England, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Areas of Specialization
3 more
Normative Ethics |
Axiology |
Decision Theory |
Population Ethics |
Infinite Value Theory |
Economics and Ethics |
Infinite Decision Theory |
Decision Theory and Ethics |
Areas of Interest
1 more
Applied Ethics |
Consumer Ethics |
Biomedical Ethics |
Philosophy of Economics |
Charitable Giving |
Effective Altruism |
PhilPapers Editorships
Decision Theory and Ethics |
Existential Risk |
Longtermism |
Axiology |