•  27
    I present some problems for phenomenal (i.e. consciousness-based) accounts of personal identity and egoistic concern. These accounts typically rely on continuity in the capacity for consciousness to explain how we survive ordinary periods of unconsciousness such as dreamless sleep. I offer some thought experiments where continuity in the capacity for consciousness does not seem sufficient for survival and some where it does not seem necessary. There are ways of modifying the standard phenomenal …Read more
  • How much better than death is ordinary survival
    In Espen Gamlund & Carl Tollef Solberg (eds.), Saving People from the Harm of Death, Oxford University Press. 2019.
  •  89
    Is Logic Distinctively Normative?
    Erkenntnis 86 (4): 1025-1043. 2019.
    Logic is widely held to be a normative discipline. Various claims have been offered in support of this view, but they all revolve around the idea that logic is concerned with how one ought to reason. I argue that most of these claims—while perhaps correct—only entail that logic is normative in a way that many, if not all, intellectual disciplines are normative. I also identify some claims whose correctness would make logic normative in a way that sets it apart from other disciplines. I argue tha…Read more
  •  137
    Rawls on the practicability of utilitarianism
    Politics, Philosophy and Economics 8 (2): 201-221. 2009.
    John Rawls's claim to have demonstrated the superiority of his own two principles of justice to the principle of utility has generated fairly extensive critical discussion. However, this discussion has almost completely disregarded those of Rawls's arguments that are concerned with practicability, despite the significance accorded to them by Rawls himself. This article addresses the three most important of Rawls's objections against the practicability of utilitarianism: that utilitarianism would…Read more
  •  174
    Hedonic Tone and the Heterogeneity of Pleasure
    Utilitas 24 (2): 172-199. 2012.
    Some philosophers have claimed that pleasures and pains are characterized by their particular or . Most contemporary writers reject this view: they hold that hedonic states have nothing in common except being liked or disliked (alternatively: pursued or avoided) for their own sake. In this article, I argue that the hedonic tone view has been dismissed too quickly: there is no clear introspective or scientific evidence that pleasures do not share a phenomenal quality. I also argue that analysing …Read more