•  13
    The Iraq War of 2003
    Teaching Ethics 5 (1): 73-77. 2004.
  •  14
    Oughts and Cans
    Philosophical Topics 38 (1): 123-142. 2010.
    Many philosophers argue that reasonably well-off people have very demanding moral obligations to assist those living in dire poverty. I explore the relevance of demandingness to determining moral obligation, challenging the view that “morality demands what it demands” and that if we cannot live up to its demands that’s our problem, not morality’s. I argue that not only for practical reasons but also for moral-theoretical ones, the language of duty, obligation, and requirement may not be well-sui…Read more
  •  20
    Debate about the responsibilities of affluent people to act to lessen global poverty has dominated ethics and political philosophy for forty years. But the controversy has reached an impasse, with the main approaches either demanding too much of ordinary mortals or else letting them off the hook. In Distant Strangers I show how a preoccupation with standard moral theories and with the concepts of duty and obligation have led philosophers astray. I argue that there are serious limits to what can …Read more
  •  38
    Truth, Neutrality, and Conflict of Interest
    Business and Professional Ethics Journal 9 (1-2): 65-78. 1990.
  •  252
    Subjectivism as moral weakness projected
    Philosophical Quarterly 33 (133): 378-385. 1983.
  •  1
    Are There Any Basic Rights?
    In Charles R. Beitz & Robert E. Goodin (eds.), Global Basic Rights, Oxford University Press. 2009.
  •  8
    Democracy and the Mass Media
    with Nigel G. E. Harris
    Philosophical Quarterly 42 (166): 124. 1992.
  •  46
    Who’s Responsible For Global Poverty?
    Teaching Ethics 16 (1): 1-15. 2016.
    This paper has two aims. The first is to describe several sources of the moral responsibility to remedy or alleviate global poverty. The second is to consider what sorts of agents bear the responsibilities associated with each source—in particular, whether they are collective agents like states or societies or individual human beings. We often talk about our responsibilities to poor people, or what we owe them. So the question is who this we is. I argue that the answer depends on the source of t…Read more
  •  2
    The Moral Equivalence of Action and Omission
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy, Supplementary Volume 8 (n/a): 19. 1982.
  •  34
    Political Equality: An Essay in Democratic Theory
    with Charles R. Beitz
    Philosophical Review 101 (3): 697. 1992.
  •  469
    Foundations and limits of freedom of the press
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 16 (4): 329-355. 1987.
  • The Ethics of Consumption: Dvd
    with Ken Knisely and Lisa Newton
    Milk Bottle Productions. 2002.
    In a hyper-consuming society, what questions should we ask ourselves as we survey the increasingly crowded planet on which we find ourselves? What are the moral effects of living amid unprecedented material plenty? With David Crocker, Lisa Newton, and Judith Lichtenberg
  •  6
    War After September 11
    with Benjamin R. Barber, Lloyd J. Dumas, Robert K. Fullinwider, William A. Galston, Paul W. Kahn, and David Luban
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2002.
    War After September 11 considers the just aims and legitimate limits of the United States' response to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001
  •  2027
    What are codes of ethics for?
    In Margaret Coady & Sidney Bloch (eds.), Codes of Ethics and the Professions, Melbourne University Press. pp. 13--27. 1996.
  • Some central problems in just war theory
    In R. Joseph Hoffmann (ed.), The Just War and Jihad, Prometheus Press. pp. 15. 2006.
  •  21
    Nationalism, for and (mainly) against
    In Robert McKim & Jeff McMahan (eds.), The Morality of Nationalism, Oxford University Press. pp. 158-75. 1997.
    To many people, the very idea of nationalism smacks of ethnocentrism or even racism. They suspect that violence, hatred, and distrust of the Other, embodied in a sharply divided world of "us" and "them," always lurk within the nationalist's heart. Recent world events have done nothing to allay these suspicions. Nationalism, on this view, is an evil to be overcome by a cosmopolitan stance that denies the significance of national boundaries. Yet positive values have also been associated with the n…Read more
  •  81
  •  31
    The Moral Equivalence of Action and Omission
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 12 (sup1): 19-36. 1982.
  •  673
    Responsibility for Global Poverty
    In Claus Janina Ludger Langbehn Sombetzki Heidbrink (ed.), Handbook of Responsibility, Springer. forthcoming.
    This paper has two aims. The first is to describe several sources of the moral responsibility to remedy or alleviate global poverty—reasons why an agent might have such a responsibility. The second is to consider what sorts of agents bear the responsibilities associated with each source—in particular, whether they are collective agents like states, societies, or corporations, on the one hand, or individual human beings on the other. We often talk about our responsibilities to the poorest people …Read more
  •  1
    The Ethics of Consumption: No Dogs or Philosophers Allowed
    with Ken Knisely, David Crocker, and Lisa Newton
    DVD. forthcoming.
    In a hyper-consuming society, what questions should we ask ourselves as we survey the increasingly crowded planet on which we find ourselves? What are the moral effects of living amid unprecedented material plenty? With David Crocker, Lisa Newton, and Judith Lichtenberg
  •  17
    Ethics of Consumption: The Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship (edited book)
    with Luis A. Camacho, Colin Campbell, David A. Crocker, Eleonora Curlo, Herman E. Daly, Eliezer Diamond, Robert Goodland, Allen L. Hammond, Nathan Keyfitz, Robert E. Lane, David Luban, James A. Nash, Martha C. Nussbaum, ThomasW Pogge, Mark Sagoff, Juliet B. Schor, Michael Schudson, Jerome M. Segal, Amartya Sen, Alan Strudler, Paul L. Wachtel, Paul E. Waggoner, David Wasserman, and Charles K. Wilber
    Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 1997.
    In this comprehensive collection of essays, most of which appear for the first time, eminent scholars from many disciplines—philosophy, economics, sociology, political science, demography, theology, history, and social psychology—examine the causes, nature, and consequences of present-day consumption patterns in the United States and throughout the world.
  •  102
    Oughts and Cans
    Philosophical Topics 38 (1): 123-142. 2010.
    Many philosophers argue that reasonably well-off people have very demanding moral obligations to assist those living in dire poverty. I explore the relevance of demandingness to determining moral obligation, challenging the view that “morality demands what it demands” and that if we cannot live up to its demands that’s our problem, not morality’s. I argue that not only for practical reasons but also for moral-theoretical ones, the language of duty, obligation, and requirement may not be well-sui…Read more
  •  3
    Democracy and the Mass Media: A Collection of Essays (edited book)
    Cambridge University Press. 1990.
    In this volume a group of distinguished legal and political theorists and experts on journalism discuss how to reconcile our values concerning freedom of the press with the enormous power of the media - especially television - to shape opinions and values. The policy issues treated concern primarily the extent of justifiable government regulation of the media and the justification for regulating television differently from newspapers. The volume contains some highly original and groundbreaking a…Read more
  •  27
    Moral Certainty
    Philosophy 69 (268). 1994.
    A man has sexual intercourse with his three-year-old niece. Teenagers standing beside a highway throw large rocks through the windshields of passing cars. A woman intentionally drives her car into a child on a bicycle. Cabdrivers cut off ambulances rushing to hospitals. Are these actions wrong? If we hesitate to say yes, that is only because the word ‘wrong’ is too mild to express our responses to such acts