-
513The Saucer of mud, The Kudzu vine and the uxorious cheetah: Against neo-Aristotelian naturalism in metaethicsEuropean Journal of Analytic Philosophy 1 (2): 37-50. 2005.Let me say something, to begin with, about wanting weird stuff. Stuff like saucers of mud. The example, famously, is from Anscombe’s Intention (Anscombe Anscombe 957)) where she is, in effect, defending a version of the old scholastic maxim, Omne appetitum appetitur sub specie boni. If your Latin is rusty like mine, what that says is just that every appetite – for better congruence with modern discussions, let’s say every desire – desires under the aspect of the good, or in the wording made curr…Read more
-
410Reasons for action: Justification vs. explanationStanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2010.Modern philosophical literature distinguishes between explanatory reasons and justifying reasons. The former are reasons we appeal to in attempting to explain actions and attitudes. The latter are reasons we appeal to in attempting to justify them.
-
384On becoming extinctPacific Philosophical Quarterly 83 (3). 2002.From an impersonal, timeless perspective it is hard to identify good reasons why it should matter that human extinction comes later rather than sooner, particularly if we accept that it does not matter how many human beings there are. We cannot appeal to the natural narrative shape of human history for there is no such thing. We have more local and particular concerns to which we can better appeal but only if an impersonal, timeless perspective is abandoned: only from a generation–centred perspe…Read more
-
209Naturalism without tearsRatio 22 (1): 1-18. 2009.Parfit argues that naturalistic theories that seek to understand normative concepts either as simply descriptive of certain natural facts about our desires or as expressive of our desires commit us to a bleak normative nihilism whereby nothing matters. I here defend such naturalism, in particular its expressivist variety, against this charge. It is true that such views commit us to there being no reasons as Parfit understands them. But for Parfit to suppose that equivalent to there being no reas…Read more
-
188Utilitarianism and obviousnessUtilitas 16 (3): 322-325. 2004.This article seeks to diagnose a serious defect in a highly influential supposed counterexample to utilitarianism: Bernard Williams's case of Jim and the Indians. Discussing this, Williams argues that, according to utilitarianism, it is obviously right to say that Jim should kill an Indian. But as this is not obviously right, Williams takes the example to furnish a forceful counterexample to utilitarianism. I note here that the force of the supposed counterexample is in fact very doubtful as the…Read more
-
156Contractualism and risk impositionPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 7 (1): 99-122. 2008.The article investigates the resources of contractualist moral theory to make sense of the ethics of risk imposition. In some ways, contractualism seems well placed to explain how it can be reasonable to accept exposure to risk of harms whose direct imposition would not be acceptable. However, there are difficulties getting clear about what directness comes to here, especially given the difficulty of adequately motivating traditional views that assign ethical significance to what the agent inten…Read more
-
146Compatibilism and contractualism: The possibility of moral responsibilityEthics 117 (1): 7-31. 2006.
-
138Michael Smith and the Daleks: Reason, Morality, and ContingencyUtilitas 11 (2): 164-177. 1999.Smith has defended the rationalist's conceptual claim that moral requirements are categorical requirements of reason, arguing that no status short of this would make sense of our taking these requirements as seriously as we do. Against this I argue that Smith has failed to show either that our moral commitments would be undermined by possessing only an internal, contextual justification or that they need presuppose any expectation that rational agents must converge on their acceptance. His claim…Read more
-
126Noncognitivism and wishfulnessEthical Theory and Moral Practice 6 (3): 265-274. 2003.It has recently been argued by Cian Dorr that if noncognitivism is true, inferences to factual conclusions from premises at least one of which is moral must be condemned as irrational. For, given a noncognitivist understanding of what it is to accept such premises, such reasoning would be wishful thinking: irrationally revising our views about the world to make them cohere with our desires and feelings. This he takes to be a reductio of noncognitivism. I argue that no compelling case to this eff…Read more
-
118Pleasure, Desire and Practical ReasonEthical Theory and Moral Practice 14 (2): 143-149. 2011.This paper examines the role of stability in the constitution of pleasure and desire, its relevance to the intimate ways the two are related and to their role in the constitution of practical reason
-
115Deliberation, schmeliberation: Enoch’s indispensability argument (review)Philosophical Studies 168 (3): 835-842. 2014.
-
115Disciplined syntacticism and moral expressivismPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 66 (1). 2003.Moral Expressivists typically concede that, in some minimal sense, moral sentences are truth-apt but claim that in some more robust sense they are not. The Immodest Disciplined Syntacticist, a species of minimalist about truth, raises a doubt as to whether this contrast can be made out. I here address this challenge by motivating and describing a distinction between reducibly and irreducibly truth-apt sentences. In the light of this distinction the Disciplined Syntacticist must either adopt a mo…Read more
-
109Actions, motives and causes (review)Philosophical Quarterly 58 (231). 2008.In this book Alfred Mele [Motivation and Agency, 2003 OUP] seeks to elaborate and defend a neo-Davidsonian understanding of human agency which is fundamentally causalist: intentional actions are, he thinks, caused and caused in such a way that a causal explanation of them is available in terms of the desires and intentions of the agent.
-
104Constructivism in Practical Philosophy (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2012.This volume presents twelve original papers on the idea that moral objectivity is to be understood in terms of a suitably constructed social point of view that all can accept.
-
104Belief, Desire and Motivation: An Essay in Quasi-HydraulicsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 33 (3): 291-301. 1996.My concern here is with the Humean claim that no purely cognitive state could, in combination with appropriate other beliefs, but with nothing else, originate a process of rational motivation. The starting point of such motivation must always include some other element: a desire. Let's call this claim, following David McNaughton the belief-desire theory, or BDT for short. The theory is widely believed but intensely controversial. I argue here that it is true.
-
102Michael Smith: The moral problem (review)Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1 (1): 125-126. 1998.
-
97Expressivism and epistemology: What is moral inquiry?Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1). 2007.
-
96Ethics Without ErrorsRatio 26 (4): 391-409. 2013.I argue against the claim that we should adopt a moral error theory. The intelligibility of our moral practice need offer no questionable metaphysical hostages to fortune. The two most credible policy recommendations that might follow from moral error theory, abolitionism and prescriptive fictionalism, are not very credible
-
95On the alleged shallowness of compatibilism: A critical study of Saul Smilansky: Free will and illusionIyyun 51 (January): 63-79. 2002.The millionaire’s idle, talentless and self-centered daughter inherits a large sum of money that she does not really deserve. The victim of kidnapping rots in a cell in 1980s Beirut in a captivity that springs not from any wrong he has done but from his ill-fortune in being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The hard-working, brilliant and self-denying Nobel Prize-winning scientist receives a large cheque for his extraordinarily productive labours. The murderer spends decades in jail for the …Read more
-
93Moral Deviants and Amoral Saints: A Dilemma for Moral ExternalismSouthern Journal of Philosophy 41 (2): 223-240. 2003.
-
86Reasons without humansAnalysis 77 (3): 586-595. 2017.1. Brian Hedden, in this impressively learned and ingenious, if somewhat maddening book,1 1 defends a view he calls Time-slice Rationality, a view comprising two central claims. They are: Synchronicity : All requirements of rationality are synchronic. Impartiality : In determining how you rationally ought to be at a time, your beliefs about what attitudes you have at other times play the same role as your beliefs about what attitudes other people have.
-
86Review: Reasons and Purposes: Human Rationality and the Teleological Explanation of Action (review)Mind 116 (463): 776-778. 2007.
-
80Gibbardian Humility: Moral Fallibility and Moral SmugnessJournal of Value Inquiry 48 (2): 235-245. 2014.Those whose Way is not the same cannot take counsel together.Confucius, Analects XV, 40Quasi-Realism and Fundamental Disagreement: Egan’s ProblemI believe that it is wrong to open your boiled egg at the big end. You believe that it is not wrong to open your egg at the big end. We are at an impasse. The impasse might not be deep. One of us might just be wrong on some matter of prosaic nonnormative fact. But perhaps that is not the case. Even if we both came to be fully informed about all relevant…Read more
-
74I—James Lenman: What is Moral Inquiry?Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 81 (1): 63-81. 2007.
-
72Science, Ethics and ObservationRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 72 261-274. 2013.This paper examines the idea that ethics might be understood as a domain of straightforwardly empirical inquiry with reference to two of its defenders. Sam Harris has recently urged that ethics is simply the scientific study of welfare and how best to maximize it. That is of course to presuppose the truth of utilitarianism, something Harris considers too obvious to be sensibly contested. Richard Boyd's more nuanced and thoughtful position takes the truth of the ethical theory he favours to be de…Read more
-
69”Review of Terence Cuneo„ The Normative Web: An Argument for Moral Realism (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (6). 2008.