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Comparing Existence and Non-ExistenceIn Jeff McMahan, Tim Campbell, James Goodrich & Ketan Ramakrishnan (eds.), Ethics and Existence: The Legacy of Derek Parfit, Oxford University Press. 2022.
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83How Stable Is Objective Chance?British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 73 (3): 613-629. 2022.This paper examines the stability of objective chance. I defend the stable chance thesis : that in any given possible world, any pair of intrinsic duplicate physical setups with the same chances of being subject to the same external influences must yield the same chances. I argue that SCT compares favourably to rivals in the literature. I then consider a challenge to SCT involving time travel and causal loops. I argue that SCT survives this challenge, but that such cases expose chance as less st…Read more
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390The Unique Groundability of Temporal FactsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 97 (2): 410-432. 2018.The A-theory and the B-theory advance competing claims about how time is grounded. The A-theory says that A-facts are more fundamental in grounding time than are B-facts, and the B-theory says the reverse. We argue that whichever theory is true of the actual world is also true of all possible worlds containing time. We do this by arguing that time is uniquely groundable: however time is actually grounded, it is necessarily grounded in that way. It follows that if either the A-theory or the B-the…Read more
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576Logic: The DrillPrinceton University Press. 2012.Contains exercises and solutions to accompany Logic: The Laws of Truth by Nicholas J. J. Smith (Princeton University Press, 2012).
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53A consequentialist account of Narveson’s dictumPhilosophical Studies 176 (7): 1693-1709. 2019.In population ethics, Narveson’s dictum states: morality favours making people happy, but is neutral about making happy people. The thought is intuitively appealing; for example, it prohibits creating new people at the expense of those who already exist. However, there are well-known obstacles to accommodating Narveson’s dictum within a standard framework of overall betterness: any attempt to do so violates very plausible formal features of betterness. Therefore, the prevailing view is that the …Read more
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56Acting on Essentially Comparative GoodnessThought: A Journal of Philosophy 6 (2): 73-83. 2017.Temkin's Essentially Comparative View of moral ideals says that goodness is comparison set dependent: the goodness of an outcome is relativized to a set of outcomes. This view does not entail that betterness is intransitive; indeed, it provides the resources for maintaining transitivity. However, it does entail that the structure of goodness is more complex than is standardly supposed. It thereby demands a modification of the standard connection between goodness and decision. I set out this chal…Read more
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983Temporal Experience, Temporal Passage and the Cognitive SciencesPhilosophy Compass 10 (8): 560-571. 2015.Cognitive science has recently made some startling discoveries about temporal experience, and these discoveries have been drafted into philosophical service. We survey recent appeals to cognitive science in the philosophical debate over whether time objectively passes. Since this research is currently in its infancy, we identify some directions for future research
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900The Unique Groundability of Temporal FactsPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 94 (1). 2017.The A-theory and the B-theory advance competing claims about how time is grounded. The A-theory says that A-facts are more fundamental in grounding time than are B-facts, and the B-theory says the reverse. We argue that whichever theory is true of the actual world is also true of all possible worlds containing time. We do this by arguing that time is uniquely groundable: however time is actually grounded, it is necessarily grounded in that way. It follows that if either the A-theory or the B-the…Read more
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130Backwards Causation and the Chancy PastMind 127 (505): 1-33. 2018.I argue that the past can be objectively chancy in cases of backwards causation, and defend a view of chance that allows for this. Using a case, I argue against the popular temporal view of chance, according to which chances are defined relative to times, and all chancy events must lie in the future. I then state and defend the causal view of chance, according to which chances are defined relative to causal histories, and all chancy events must lie causally downstream. The causal view replicates…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Probability |
Population Ethics |
Time |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Probability |
Population Ethics |
Time |