•  43
    Ex-Ante Pareto and the Opaque-Identity Puzzle
    Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Anna Mahtani describes a puzzle meant to show that the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle is incomplete as it stands and, since it cannot be completed in a satisfactory manner, decades of debate in welfare economics and ethics are undermined. In this paper, we provide a better solution to the puzzle which saves the Ex-Ante Pareto Principle from this challenge. We also explain how the plausibility of our solution is reinforced by its similarity to a standard solution to an analogous puzzle in quantified ep…Read more
  •  46
    Risk, Non-Identity, and Extinction
    The Monist 107 (2). 2024.
    This paper examines a recent argument in favour of strong precautionary action—possibly including working to hasten human extinction—on the basis of a decision-theoretic view that accommodates the risk-attitudes of all affected while giving more weight to the more risk-averse attitudes. First, we dispute the need to take into account other people’s attitudes towards risk at all. Second we argue that a version of the non-identity problem undermines the case for doing so in the context of future p…Read more
  •  93
    A New Puzzle for Limited Aggregation
    Analysis (XX). 2024.
    This paper presents a new puzzle for limited aggregation. Unlike other recent puzzles, this one arises independently of the issue of rational aversion to risk. Some possible responses are laid out and explored.
  •  317
    People in Suitcases
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 20 (1-2): 3-30. 2022.
    Ex-ante deontology is an attempt to combine deontological constraints on doing or intending harm with the idea that one should act in everyone’s interest if possible. I argue that ex-ante deontology has serious problems in cases where multiple decisions are to be made over time. I then argue that these problems force us to choose between commonsense deontological morality and a more consequentialist morality. I suggest that we should choose the latter.
  •  268
    Johnston versus Johnston
    Synthese 200 (2): 1-19. 2022.
    Personites are like continuant people but shorter-lived. Johnston argues that personites do not exist since otherwise personites would have the same moral status as persons, which is untenable. I argue that Johnston’s arguments fail. To do that I propose an alternative way to understand intrinsicness and I clarify the meaning of reductionism about persons. I also argue that a plausible ethical theory is possible even if personites have the same moral status as persons. My arguments draw on Johns…Read more
  •  338
    Transfinitely Transitive Value
    Philosophical Quarterly 72 (1): 108-134. 2021.
    This paper develops transfinite extensions of transitivity and acyclicity in the context of population ethics. They are used to argue that it is better to add good lives, worse to add bad lives, and equally good to add neutral lives, where a life's value is understood as personal value. These conclusions rule out a number of theories of population ethics, feed into an argument for the repugnant conclusion, and allow us to reduce different-number comparisons to same-number ones. Challenges to the…Read more