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5705Virtue ethics without right action: Anscombe, foot, and contemporary virtue ethicsJournal of Value Inquiry 44 (2): 209-224. 2010.
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1175Ethical Naturalism and the Constitution of AgencyJournal of Value Inquiry 46 (1): 13-23. 2012.
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559Teichmann, Roger. Nature, Reason, and the Good Life: Ethics for Human Beings. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011. Pp. 224. $65.00 (review)Ethics 122 (3): 637-641. 2012.
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315Personal identity, fission and time travelPhilosophia 34 (2): 129-142. 2006.One problem that has formed the focus of much recent discussion on personal identity is the Fission Problem. The aim of this paper is to offer a novel solution to this problem.
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206Human nature, personhood, and ethical naturalismPhilosophy 84 (3): 413-427. 2009.John McDowell has argued that for human needs to matter in practical deliberation, we must have already acquired the full range of character traits that are imparted by an ethical upbringing. Since our upbringings can diverge considerably, his argument makes trouble for any Aristotelian ethical naturalism that wants to support a single set of moral virtues. I argue here that there is a story to be told about the normal course of human life according to which it is no coincidence that there is ag…Read more
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200What is natural about foot's ethical naturalism?Ratio 22 (3): 308-321. 2009.Philippa Foot's Natural Goodness is in the midst of a cool reception. It appears that this is due to the fact that Foot's naturalism draws on a picture of the biological world at odds with the view embraced by most scientists and philosophers. Foot's readers commonly assume that the account of the biological world that she must want to adhere to, and that she nevertheless mistakenly departs from, is the account offered by contemporary neo-Darwinian biological sciences. But as is evident in her n…Read more
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196Moral status in virtue ethicsPhilosophy 82 (3): 449-473. 2007.My contention is that virtue ethics offers an important critique of traditional philosophical conceptions of moral status as well as an alternative view of important moral issues held to depend on moral status. I argue that the scope of entities that deserve consideration depends on our conception of the demands of virtues like justice; which entities deserve consideration emerges from a moral view of a world shaped by that conception. The deepest disputes about moral status depend on conflictin…Read more
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156Skill, Practical Wisdom, and Ethical NaturalismEthical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (5): 983-993. 2015.IntroductionRecent work in virtue theory has breathed new life into the analogy between virtue and skill.See, for example, Annas ; Bloomfield ; Stichter ; Swartwood . There is good reason to think that this analogy is worth pursuing since it may help us understand the distinctive nexus of reasoning, knowledge, and practical ability that is found in virtue by pointing to a similar nexus found outside moral contexts in skill. In some ways, there is more than an analogy between skill and virtue. Cl…Read more
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93Human Nature, Virtue, and RationalityIn Julia Peters (ed.), Aristotelian Ethics in Contemporary Perspective, Routledge. pp. 83. 2012.
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90Moral discourse, pluralism, and moral cognitivismMetaphilosophy 37 (1). 2005.In the face of pluralism, moral constructivists attempt to salvage cognitivism by separating moral and ethical issues. Divergence over ethical issues, which concern the good life, would not threaten moral cognitivism, which is based on identifying generalizable interests as worthy of defending, using reason. Yet this approach falters given the inability of the constructivist to provide us a sure path by which to discern generalizable interests in difficult cases. Still, even if this approach to …Read more
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87Transcendence without realityPhilosophy 80 (3): 361-384. 2005.Thomas Nagel has held that transcendence requires attaining a point of view stripped of features unique to our perspective. The aim of transcendence on this view is to get at reality as it is, independent of our contributions to it. I show this notion of transcendence to be incoherent, yet defend a contrasting notion of transcendence. As conceived here, transcendence does not require striving for an external, objective viewpoint on nature or looking at matters from someone else's or an impartial…Read more
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74Virtues as Perfections of Human Powers: On the Metaphysics of Goodness in Aristotelian NaturalismRoyal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 87 127-149. 2020.The central idea of Philippa Foot’s Natural Goodness is that moral judgments belong to the same logical kind of judgments as those that attribute natural goodness and defect to plants and animals. But moral judgments focus on a subset of human powers that play a special role in our lives as rational animals, namely, reason, will, and desire. These powers play a central role in properly human actions: those actions in which we go for something that we see and understand as good. Many readers of F…Read more
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50Philippa Foot on Goodness and Virtue (edited book)Springer Verlag. 2018.This volume focuses on controversial issues that stem from Philippa Foot's later writings on natural goodness which are at the center of contemporary discussions of virtue ethics. The chapters address questions about how Foot relates judgments of moral goodness to human nature, how Foot understands happiness, and addresses objections to her framework from the perspective of empirical biology. The volume will be of value to any student or scholar with an interest in virtue ethics and analytic mor…Read more
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40The Practical Unity of Practical WisdomTopoi 1-8. forthcoming.Practical wisdom is the sine qua non of good conduct for Aristotelian virtue ethicists. Aristotelians conceive it as the virtue responsible for the intellectual side of good conduct, which involves having the right goal and deliberating well about what fulfils that goal, among other tasks. But is there any such trait as practical wisdom? Given the diversity of jobs practical wisdom is asked to do (seven goals are often enumerated), there may be a cluster of traits corresponding to what Aristotel…Read more
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38NormativityJudith Jarvis Thomson Chicago: Open Court Press, 2008, ix + 271 pp., $39.93 (review)Dialogue 50 (1): 220-222. 2011.
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37Practical Wisdom, Extended Rationality, and Human AgencyPhilosophies 8 (2): 39. 2023.This paper defends a neo-Aristotelian conception of practical wisdom as a virtue that enables human agents to reflect on and direct their lives toward virtuous ends over time. This view is sometimes assumed to require a commitment to an intellectualist Grand End or blueprint view. On that view, practical wisdom would require philosophical insight and an implausibly well worked out set of weighted preferences. In this paper, I aim to show that particularists can and should take on much of what wa…Read more
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37Passions, virtue, and rational lifePhilosophy and Social Criticism 46 (2): 131-140. 2020.Neo-Aristotelian ethical naturalists argue that moral norms are natural norms that apply to human beings. A central issue for neo-Aristotelians is to determine what belongs to the good human life; the question is complicated, since we take up a diversity of different lives, many of which seem good, and it seems unclear what the human species-characteristic life really is. The Aristotelian tradition gives some guidance on this question, however, because it describes us as rational animals with in…Read more
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35Heidegger's fundamental ontology and the human good in Aristotelian ethicsSouthern Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.Neo‐Aristotelian ethical naturalists take the concept “human” to be central to practical philosophy. According to this view, practical philosophy aims at a distinctive human good that defines its subject matter. Hence, practical philosophy can survive neither the elimination of the concept nor its subsumption under a more general concept, such as that of the rational agent. The challenge central to properly formulating Aristotelian naturalism is: How can the concept of the human be specified in …Read more
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33Philippa Foot's MetaethicsCambridge University Press. 2021.This Element presents an interpretation and defence of Philippa Foot's ethical naturalism. It begins with the often neglected grammatical method that Foot derives from an interpretation of Ludwig Wittgenstein's later philosophy. This method shapes her approach to understanding goodness as well as the role that she attributes to human nature in ethical judgment. Moral virtues understood as perfections of human powers are central to Foot's account of ethical judgment. The thrust of the interpretat…Read more
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27Phronēsis and ContemplationDialogue 60 (3): 475-482. 2021.RésuméUne interprétation attrayante de la psychologie morale d'Aristote soutient que la vertu de caractère fixe la fin de la bonne vie. De ce point de vue, la sagesse pratique ouphronēsisne fournit que les moyens vers la fin qui est saisie par les vertus de caractère. Pourtant, cette vision a du mal à rendre compte de la suprématie de la vie contemplative, qui est clairement la meilleure vie au sens paradigmatique ou strict pour Aristote. Dans cet article, je soutiens que l'intellect joue un rôl…Read more
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27Introduction to Special Forum on “Politics and Virtue”Journal of Value Inquiry 55 (3): 397-398. 2020.
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20Using Wittgenstein Critically: A Political Approach to PhilosophyPhilosophy Today 30 (6): 800-827. 2002.
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16Introduction: From Natural Goodness to MoralityIn Philippa Foot on Goodness and Virtue, Springer Verlag. pp. 1-23. 2018.This introductory chapter will frame the volume by discussing Foot’s work on goodness in terms of her approach to morality. It is often assumed that Foot’s approach to morality is that of a virtue ethicist in the contemporary sense of this view. Yet Foot distances herself from such approaches. Morality, for Foot, is closely associated with a system of moral norms adopted by a society. These codes do not follow straightforwardly from reflection on the virtues. There are norms for the construction…Read more
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16Understanding Racism as an Ethical Ideology: An Approach to Critical Communication in a White Supremacist SocietySocial Philosophy Today 17 217-231. 2001.To be fully understood, contemporary forms of racism must be grasped as ethical ideologies rooted in an independent system of value classification. Racism does not merely result from an intrusion of strategic action on communicative action, as discourse ethicists might argue. In contemporary racism, the minority group is seen as perversely incapable of developing a capacity for the behavior that would constitute just moral reciprocity as decided in the contractual situation. Their standing as me…Read more
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13Philippa Foot's moral thoughtBloomsbury Academic. 2013.Naturalism and analytic moral philosophy from Moore to Hare -- Moral concepts in Foot's early naturalism -- Against moral rationalism -- Virtue and morality -- Nonconsequentialism and moral problems -- Human nature and virtue -- Nietzsche and morality -- Philippa Foot's moral vision.
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7A Plea For Acknowledgment: Reflections on Finding Human Reasons for Moral ActionJanus Head 5 (1): 98-121. 2002.
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7Conflicts of Value and the Political Ideal of Citizenship: A Defense of Political ConstructivismSocial Philosophy Today 18 167-181. 2002.In this paper, I take up Habermas’s recent writing on Rawls in Inclusion of the Other and focus on an example that Habermas discusses there, the Catholic stance on abortion. He brings in this example to question how such views could be rationally negotiated, under Rawls’s views of political liberalism, prior to arriving at an overlapping consensus. Habermas argues that Rawls must affirm the truth of moral constructivism in order to resolve the question of which conceptions of the good make a val…Read more
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