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31Hybrid Ethical Theory and Cohen’s Critique of Rawls’s Egalitarian LiberalismMoral Philosophy and Politics. forthcoming.This article examines G. A. Cohen’s endorsement of a hybrid ethical theory and its relationship to his critique of John Rawls’s egalitarian liberalism. Cohen claimed that Rawls’s appeal to special incentives was a distortion of his own difference principle. I argue that Cohen’s acceptance of a personal prerogative (the central element of Samuel Scheffler’s version of a hybrid ethical theory) has several untoward consequences. First, it illuminates how any reasonable challenge to Rawls’s liberali…Read more
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102Agent-Relativity and the Status of Deontological RestrictionsJournal of Value Inquiry 57 (2): 233-255. 2023.
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1The Supremacy of Love: An Agape-Centered Vision of Aristotelian Virtue Ethics by Eric J. Silverman (review)Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. 2020.
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50Skorupski and Broome on the Agent-Neutral/Relative DistinctionUtilitas 31 (1): 59-82. 2019.I have two aims in this article. The first is to break the deadlocked exchange between John Skorupski and John Broome concerning how best to understand Thomas Nagel's distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons for action. The second is to provide a reformulation of the distinction which captures an uncontroversial distinction between those reason-giving considerations which encapsulate an indexical relationship between an agent and an object of moral concern, and those which do…Read more
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93Normative Reasons Qua Facts and the Agent-Neutral/relative Dichotomy: a Response to Rønnow-RasmussenPhilosophia 45 (1): 207-225. 2017.This paper offers a defence of the distinction between agent-neutral and agent-relative reasons for action from scepticism aired by Toni Rønnow-Rasmussen. In response it is argued that the Nagelian notion of an agent-neutral reason is not incomprehensible, and that agent-neutral reasons can indeed be understood as obtaining states of affairs that count in favour of anyone and everyone performing the action they favour. Furthermore, I argue that a distinction drawn between agent-neutral and agent…Read more
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