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1Moral Philosophy Naturalized: Morality and Mitigated Scepticism in HumeDissertation, Harvard University. 1986.This study examines Hume's attempt, in the Treatise and the Second Enquiry, to treat moral philosophy as a branch of the science of human nature. Hume's effect to naturalize moral philosophy includes more than a causal inquiry into the workings of the human mind. He takes moral practices to originate both in psychological sources and in social conventions . His naturalism thus includes a 'natural history' of morality; a causal inquiry into the likely origins of the complex social practices which…Read more
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32RacismIn R. G. Frey & Christopher Heath Wellman (eds.), A Companion to Applied Ethics, Wiley-blackwell. 2003.This chapter contains sections titled: What is Racism? Why is Racism Morally Wrong? What Constitutes Racism and When is it Morally Wrong? Must We Believe in the “Permanence of Racism?”
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58The Virtue of Nussbaum's EssentialismMetaphilosophy 29 (4): 263-272. 1998.This paper shows that Nussbaum's Aristotelian essentialism effectively combines resources for constructive social criticism (even in “traditional” societies) with concern for the concrete particulars of realized ways of life. Many critics of Nussbaum’s views have failed to appreciate its many virtues in this regard. Yet Nussbaum's confidence in the broad possibilities of internal social criticism demands a better account of the moral openness of human cultures than anything Nussbaum has herself …Read more
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6Theory, Practice, and the Contingency of Rorty's Irony1Journal of Social Philosophy 25 (2): 209-227. 2008.
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57. What ’S so Special About Academic Freedom?In Akeel Bilgrami & Jonathan R. Cole (eds.), Who's Afraid of Academic Freedom?, Cambridge University Press. pp. 97-122. 2015.
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15Memory, Multiculturalism, and the Sources of Democratic SolidarityIn Jacob Levy, Jocelyn Maclure & Daniel Weinstock (eds.), Interpreting Modernity: Essays on the Work of Charles Taylor, Mcgill-queen's University Press. pp. 228-243. 2020.
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28Fieldwork in Familiar Places (review)Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 63 (3): 716-720. 2001.Readers should be aware that the present author’s views are criticized in Moody-Adams’ book. Very few moral theorists escape criticism in this interesting alternative to relativist and realist approaches in contemporary ethical theory. Moody-Adams rejects the relativist claim that there are irresolvable moral disagreements, but does not rest that rejection on the idea of an independently existing moral reality. Indeed, she resolutely rejects attempts to explain moral differences based on the ide…Read more
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22Coming To Terms With HistoryRaven 1 (2). 2022.Comprehensive historical understanding is also a central element of the information we need to be responsible moral agents. It is also a critical support of the morality that makes political cooperation possible, especially in any society shaped by a history of ethnic or racial injustice, colonialism, imperialism, or sectarian conflict. Efforts to censor the teaching of history that makes one uncomfortable are thus ethically as well as epistemically indefensible.
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18Making Space for Justice Social Movements, Collective Imagination, and Political HopeColumbia University Press. 2022.From nineteenth-century abolitionism to Black Lives Matter today, progressive social movements have been at the forefront of social change. Yet it is seldom recognized that such movements have not only engaged in political action but also posed crucial philosophical questions about the meaning of justice and about how the demands of justice can be met. Michele Moody-Adams argues that anyone who is concerned with the theory or the practice of justice—or both—must ask what can be learned from soci…Read more
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80Against HappinessColumbia University Press. 2023.The “happiness agenda” is a worldwide movement that claims that happiness is the highest good, happiness can be measured, and public policy should promote happiness. Against Happiness is a thorough and powerful critique of this program, revealing the flaws of its concept of happiness and advocating a renewed focus on equality and justice. Written by an interdisciplinary team of authors, this book provides both theoretical and empirical analysis of the limitations of the happiness agenda. The aut…Read more
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16Reflections on Appiah’s The Ethics of IdentityJournal of Social Philosophy 37 (2): 292-300. 2006.
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228The Idea of Moral ProgressMetaphilosophy 30 (3): 168-185. 1999.This paper shows that moral progress is a substantive and plausible idea. Moral progress in belief involves deepening our grasp of existing moral concepts, while moral progress in practices involves realizing deepened moral understandings in behavior or social institutions. Moral insights could not be assimilated or widely disseminated if they involved devising and applying totally new moral concepts. Thus, it is argued, moral failures of past societies cannot be explained by appeal to ignorance…Read more
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88Democracy, Identity, and PoliticsRes Philosophica 95 (2): 199-218. 2018.Democratic politics is always identity politics and there are some varieties of identity politics without which full and genuine democratic cooperation would not be possible. Indeed, the very existence of a democratic people involves mobilization of political concern and action around a democratic national identity. But a genuinely democratic national identity must be an open identity that can accommodate internal complexity and acknowledge external responsibilities. Moreover, in democracies cha…Read more
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83Reply to Griswold, Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration (review)Philosophia 38 (3): 429-437. 2010.This paper replies to the account of forgiveness developed in Griswold’s Forgiveness: A Philosophical Exploration. It defends the idea that “unilateral” forgiveness is the paradigm case of the virtue of forgiveness, rejecting Griswold’s claims that forgiveness is essentially a “dyadic” virtue, and that reconciliation of the wronged party with the wrongdoer is a defining element of forgiveness. Forgiveness is fundamentally a matter of being reconciled to the persistence of human wrongdoing, as ex…Read more
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The legacy of plessy V. FergusonIn Tommy Lee Lott & John P. Pittman (eds.), A Companion to African-American Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 2003.
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30Reclaiming the ideal of equalityIn Barbara S. Andrew, Jean Clare Keller & Lisa H. Schwartzman (eds.), Feminist Interventions in Ethics and Politics: Feminist Ethics and Social Theory, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 167. 2005.
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136The Enigma of ForgivenessJournal of Value Inquiry 49 (1-2): 161-180. 2015.For at least two millennia, religious traditions, spiritual communities and secular moral thinkers have debated the nature and sources of forgiveness. But near the end of the twentieth century understanding forgiveness took on new urgency, as divided societies looked to forgiveness as a vehicle of reconciliation, governments sought forgiveness for past wrongs, and popular psychology explored the therapeutic effects of forgiveness. These developments have led to a remarkable increase in scholarsh…Read more
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3713. The Path of Conscientious CitizenshipIn Brandon M. Terry & Tommie Shelby (eds.), To Shape a New World: Essays on the Political Philosophy of Martin Luther King, Jr, Harvard University Press. pp. 269-289. 2018.
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212Moral Progress and Human AgencyEthical Theory and Moral Practice 20 (1): 153-168. 2017.The idea of moral progress is a necessary presupposition of action for beings like us. We must believe that moral progress is possible and that it might have been realized in human experience, if we are to be confident that continued human action can have any morally constructive point. I discuss the implications of this truth for moral psychology. I also show that once we understand the complex nature and the complicated social sources of moral progress, we will appreciate why we cannot constru…Read more
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33Feminist Inquiry and the Transformation of the “Public” Sphere in Virginia Held's Feminist MoralityHypatia 11 (1): 155-167. 1996.Virginia Held's Feminist Morality defends the idea that it is possible to transform the “public” sphere by remaking it on the model of existing “private” relationships such as families. This paper challenges Held's optimism. It is argued that feminist moral inquiry can aid in transforming the public sphere only by showing just how much the allegedly “private” realms of families and personal relationships are shaped—and often misshapen—by public demands and concerns.
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168Fieldwork in familiar places: morality, culture, and philosophyHarvard University Press. 1997.Fieldwork in Familiar Places challenges the misconceptions about morality, culture, and objectivity that support these skepticisms, to show that we can take ...
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20Feminism by any other nameIn Hilde Lindemann (ed.), Feminism and Families, Routledge. pp. 76--89. 1997.
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