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1295Acquiring Universal Values through a Particular Tradition: A Perspective on Judaism and Modern PluralismEuropean Journal for Philosophy of Religion 5 (2): 1--22. 2013.Religious traditions can be sources of values and attitudes supporting the liberal polity in ways that political theorizing and conceptions of public reason often fail to recognize. moreover, religious traditions can give support through the ways reason is crucial to their self-understanding. one understanding of Judaism is examined as an example. Also, the particularism of traditions can encourage commitment to universally valid values and ideals. reason’s role in Judaism and other religious tr…Read more
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136Dimensions of Moral Theory: An Introduction to Metaethics and Moral PsychologyWiley-Blackwell. 2002.A study of fundamental issues in metaethics and in moral psychology, surveying important approaches with an emphasis on the disputed status of moral value and the roles of cognition and sensibility. Coverage of the issues includes discussion of significant thinkers from antiquity to the present.
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87The Epistemology of Moral TraditionReview of Metaphysics 64 (1): 55-74. 2010.An explication of the Maimonidean view that tradition--even when anchored in revelation---can be a mode of access to rationally justified moral requirements. The discussion focuses on the mutually reinforcing roles of enlarging understanding on the one hand, and engagement in practice on the other. Deepened understanding of the 'reasons for the commandments' can motivate commitment to practice, which in turn can aid in deepening understanding.
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57Criminal Justice and the Liberal PolityCriminal Justice Ethics 30 (2): 173-191. 2011.There are several reasonable conceptions of liberalism. A liberal polity can survive a measure of disagreement over just what constitutes liberalism. In part, this is because of the way a liberal order makes possible a dynamic, heterogeneous civil society and how that, in turn, can supply participants with reasons to support a liberal political order. Despite the different conceptions of justice associated with different conceptions of liberalism, there are reasons to distinguish the normative f…Read more
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54Plasticity and perfection: Maimonides and Aristotle on characterReligious Studies 33 (4): 443-454. 1997.Many of the basic elements of Maimonides' moral psychology are Aristotelian, but there are some important respects in which Maimonides departs from Aristotle. One of those respect concerns the possibility of changing one's character. There is, according to Maimonides, redemptive possibility that Aristotle does not recognize. There is, according to Maimonides, a redemptive possibility that Aristotle does not recognize. This is based on the fact of revealed law. That is, if there is revealed law, …Read more
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52Choosing character: responsibility for virtue and viceCornell University Press. 2001.Jacobs' interpretation is developed in contrast to the overlooked work of Maimonides, who also used Aristotelian resources but argued for the possibility of ...
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49Metaethics and TeleologyReview of Metaphysics 55 (1). 2001.THERE IS AN IMPORTANT RESPECT in which virtue-centered ethical realism needs to be more Aristotelian than it is typically willing to admit. This concerns the way in which teleological considerations need to be more explicitly acknowledged. Reflection on moral phenomenology, discourse, and practice supports realism and also reveals that teleological considerations cannot be entirely disowned by it. The teleology is not a grand teleology, however; it is not the view that there is a unique perfecti…Read more
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47Law, reason, and morality in medieval Jewish philosophy: [Saadia Gaon, Bahya ibn Pakuda, and Moses Maimonides]Oxford University Press. 2010.Jon Jacobs emphasises their distinctive contributions, emphasises the shared rational emphasis of their approach to Torah, and draws out resonances with ...
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46Some tensions between autonomy and self-governanceSocial Philosophy and Policy 20 (2): 221-244. 2003.The notions of autonomy and self-governance each capture something crucial about the moral dimensions of agents and actions. These notions are central to the ways in which we conceptualize ourselves and others. The concept of autonomy is especially crucial to understanding the distinct status of moral agents. For its part, self-governance has a significant relation to the evaluation of agents as individuals with particular characters, leading particular sorts of lives, and performing particular …Read more
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42Moral Imagination, Objectivity, and Practical WisdomInternational Philosophical Quarterly 31 (1): 23-37. 1991.
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41Why Is Virtue Naturally Pleasing?Review of Metaphysics 49 (1): 21-48. 1995.A great deal is compressed into this passage; pleasure is associated in important ways with our nature; it has a crucial role in moral education; we can be pleased and displeased correctly or incorrectly, and this has a place in making character; and pleasure is something that matters all through a human life. Some of the themes are introduced and discussed at earlier places in the Ethics; some receive fuller treatment in book 10. The idea that some things are naturally pleasant and that the vir…Read more
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40Review of Maimonides' Guide for the Perplexed: Science and Salvation, by Donald McCallum (review)Philosophy East and West 58 (3): 407-410. 2008.
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39Aristotle and MaimonidesAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 76 (1): 145-163. 2002.Maimonides uses Aristotelian philosophical idiom to articulate his moral philosophy, but there are fundamental differences between his and Aristotle’s conceptions of moral psychology and the nature of the moral agent. The Maimonidean conception of volition and its role in repentance and ethical self-correction are quite un-Aristotelian. The relation between this capacity to alter one’s character and the accessibility of ethical requirements given in the Law is explored. This relation helps expla…Read more
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38Deliberation, Self-Conceptions, and Self-EnjoymentIdealistic Studies 19 (1): 1-15. 1989.It is only for persons that the question, “How shall I live?” arises, and it arises inevitably, even if in an inarticulate and unreflective manner. Persons must deliberate, decide, plan, and schedule their actions. Openness with respect to ends confronts them, and they must structure and direct their lives by determining what sort of career to trace out, even if it proves to be a career of routine or unambitious undertakings. Circumstances can constrain and compel, and the openness persons confr…Read more
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32Punishing Society: Incarceration, Coercive Corruption, and the Liberal PolityCriminal Justice Ethics 33 (3): 200-219. 2014.Criminal justice in the United States is beset with several serious problems and challenges. While the issues are not entirely unique to the U.S. and can be found to some extent in other liberal de...
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32Some Remarks on Criminology and Moral PhilosophyCriminal Justice Ethics 38 (3): 198-220. 2019.Recent developments in philosophy and in criminology indicate that there are significant respects in which the two disciplines can be mutually informing. Many philosophers are increasingly interested in exploring empirical aspects of philosophical claims, and criminologists are finding their way past the alleged fact/value distinction and are rediscovering the moral significance of facts, especially regarding punishment and desistance. In some recent criminological studies there are implicit lin…Read more
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29Friendship, Self-Love and KnowledgeAmerican Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 66 (1): 21-37. 1992.
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28How Is Criminal Justice Related to the Rest of Justice?Criminal Justice Ethics 39 (2): 111-136. 2020.Are principles of criminal justice derived from a broader conception of justice, or does criminal justice involve some of its own distinctive principles such that it is not—for example—an aspect of...
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28The Liberal Polity, Criminal Sanction, and Civil SocietyCriminal Justice Ethics 32 (3): 1-16. 2013.The article explores an intersection of moral psychology and political principles regarding criminal sanction. A liberal state cannot require that persons acquire certain states of character or lead certain specific kinds of lives; it cannot require virtue. Moreover, it would be wrong for the state to punish offenders in ways that damage their capacities for agency, and in ways that encourage vice. In the U.S. the terms and conditions of punishment often have deleterious effects on agential capa…Read more
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28Desmond King-Hele, A Tapestry of Orbits. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992. Pp. x + 244. ISBN 0-521-39323-X. £35.00 (review)British Journal for the History of Science 26 (3): 377-378. 1993.
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25Judaic Sources & Western Thought: Jerusalem's Enduring Presence (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2011.A collection of ten new papers by ten authors, exploring respects in which there are Judaic sources for important (and often contested) Western moral and political ideas and ideals. It focuses on distinctively Judaic roots of the so-called 'Judeo-Christian tradition.'
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25Lemos, Ramon M. The Nature of Value: Axiological Investigations (review)Review of Metaphysics 50 (2): 410-411. 1996.
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25Reason, Religion, and Natural Law: From Plato to Spinoza (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2012.A collection of new papers by ten philosophers exploring relations between conceptions of natural law and theism, ranging from Plato to the early modern period. Rather than defending a a specific view of natural law, the papers explicate the complex texture of the relations between the diverse conceptions of natural law and diverse conceptions of theism and its significance for moral and political thought.
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24Choosing Character: Responsibility for Virtue and ViceCornell University Press. 2001.Are there key respects in which character and character defects are voluntary? Can agents with serious vices be rational agents? Jonathan Jacobs answers in the affirmative. Moral character is shaped through voluntary habits, including the ways we habituate ourselves, Jacobs believes. Just as individuals can voluntarily lead unhappy lives without making unhappiness an end, so can they degrade their ethical characters through voluntary action that does not have establishment of vice as its end. Ch…Read more
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |