•  648
    Utilitarianism has often been understood as a theory that concerns itself first and foremost with the rightness of actions; but many other things are also properly subject to moral evaluation, and utilitarians have long understood that the theory must be able to provide an account of these as well. In a landmark article from 1976, Robert Adams argues that traditional act utilitarianism faces a particular problem in this regard. He argues that a on a sensible utilitarian account of the rightness …Read more
  • Left Out: Deontological Moral Theory and the Problem of Animals
    Dissertation, University of Minnesota. 2000.
    Morality places constraints on our treatment of certain beings, but what sorts of beings? Why these beings? These are questions any moral theory must answer, and the adequacy of its answer can serve at least in part as a measure of the adequacy of the theory itself. Focusing on their answers to these questions, my dissertation raises a significant problem for deontological moral theories. These theories fail to account plausibly even for quite minimal moral constraints on our treatment of animal…Read more
  •  127
    Skepticism about practical reason: Transcendental arguments and their limits
    Philosophical Studies 109 (2): 121-141. 2002.
    Transcendental arguments offer a particularlypowerful strategy for combating skepticism. Such arguments, after all, attempt to show thata particular skepticism is not simply mistakenbut inconsistent or self-refuting. Whilethus tempting to philosophers struggling withskepticism of various sorts, the boldconclusions of these arguments have longrendered them suspicious in the eyes of many. In fact, in a famous paper from 1968 BarryStroud develops what is often taken to be adecisive case against tra…Read more