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173Function, Fitness, FlourishingIn Paul Bloomfield & David Copp (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Moral Realism, Oxford University Press. pp. 264-292. 2023.
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102The Skills of JusticeIn Ellen Fridland & Pavase Carlotta (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Skills and Expertise, Rutledge. pp. 460-475. 2021.
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181Humility Is Not A VirtueIn Mark Alfano, Michael Patrick Lynch & Alessandra Tanesini (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Humility, Routledge. pp. 36-46. 2021.
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228The Axiology of Pain and PleasureJournal of Value Inquiry 1-24. forthcoming.There is little more common in ethics than to think pain is intrinsically bad and pleasure is intrinsically good. A Humean-style error theory of the axiology of pain and pleasure is developed against these commonsense claims. We defend the thesis that the value of pain and pleasure is always contingent and only instrumental. We survey prominent theories of both intrinsic value and pain/pleasure, all of which assume that pain and pleasure are intrinsically valuable. We base our error theory o…Read more
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84On human rights * by James Griffin (review)Analysis 71 (1): 195-197. 2011.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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38The Reflective Life: Living Wisely With Our Limits, by Valerie TiberiusMind 119 (473): 258-262. 2010.(No abstract is available for this citation)
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14Beyond the Basics of Emotions (review)Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 3 (1): 24-30. 2021.While emotions can play positive, contributory roles in our cognition and our lives, they frequently have the opposite effect. Michael Brady’s otherwise excellent introduction to the topic of emotion is unbalanced because he does not attend to harms emotions cause. The basic problem is that emotions have a normative aspect: they can be justified or unjustified and Brady does not attend to this. An example of this is Brady’s discussion of curiosity as the emotional motivation for knowledge. More …Read more
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296Naturalistic Moral Realism and Evolutionary BiologyPhilosophies 7 (1): 2. 2021.Perhaps the most familiar understanding of “naturalism” derives from Quine, understanding it as a continuity of empirical theories of the world as described through the scientific method. So, it might be surprising that one of the most important naturalistic moral realists, Philippa Foot, rejects standard evolutionary biology in her justly lauded _Natural Goodness_. One of her main reasons for this is the true claim that humans can flourish (eudaimonia) without reproducing, which she claims cann…Read more
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583Virtues are excellencesRatio 35 (1): 49-60. 2021.One of the few points of unquestioned agreement in virtue theory is that the virtues are supposed to be excellences. The best way to understand the project of "virtue ethics" is to understand this claim as the idea that the virtues always yield correct moral action and, therefore, that we cannot be “too virtuous”. In other words, the virtues cannot be had in excess or “to a fault”. If we take this seriously, however, it yields the surprising conclusion that many traits which have been traditiona…Read more
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116Some Intellectual Aspects of the Cardinal VirtuesIn Mark Timmons (ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol. 3, . pp. 287-313. 2014.
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158Epistemic TemperanceAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 56 (2): 109-124. 2019.The idea of epistemic temperance is introduced and explicated through a discussion of Plato's understanding of it. A variety of psychological and epistemic phenomena are presented which arise due to epistemic intemperance, or the inappropriate influence of conations on cognition. Two cases familiar to philosophers, self-deception and racial prejudice, are discussed as the result of epistemic intemperance though they are not typically seen as having a common cause. Finally, epistemic temperance i…Read more
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21Knowing What To Do: Imagination, Virtue, and Platonism in Ethics, by Timothy Chappell: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, pp. ix + 339, £45 (review)Australasian Journal of Philosophy 93 (3): 607-610. 2015.
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527The Character of the HypocriteJournal of Philosophical Research 43 69-82. 2018.A distinction is made between acting hypocritically and the character trait of being a hypocrite. The former is understood as resulting from the employment of a double standard in order to obtain a wrongful advantage, while a particular problem with the latter is that hypocrites do not give trustworthy testimony.
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204Justice as a Self‐Regarding VirtuePhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 82 (1): 46-64. 2010.
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577Tracking EudaimoniaPhilosophy, Theory, and Practice in Biology 10 (2). 2018.A basic challenge to naturalistic moral realism is that, even if moral properties existed, there would be no way to naturalistically represent or track them. Here, the basic structure for a tracking account of moral epistemology is given in empirically respectable terms, based on a eudaimonist conception of morality. The goal is to show how this form of moral realism can be seen as consistent with the details of evolutionary biology as well as being amenable to the most current understanding of …Read more
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86The harm of immoralityRatio 21 (3): 241-259. 2008.A central problem in moral theory is how it is to be defended against those who think that there is no harm in being immoral, and that immorality can be in one's self-interest, assuming the perpetrator is not caught and punished. The argument presented here defends the idea that being immoral prevents one from having self-respect. If it makes sense to think that one cannot be happy without self-respect, then the conclusion follows that one cannot be both immoral and happy. Immorality is harmful …Read more
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85Of Goodness and Healthiness: A Viable Moral OntologyPhilosophical Studies 87 (3): 309-332. 1997.
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115The Rules of "Goodness": An Essay on Moral SemanticsAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 40 (3). 2003.
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1540Morality is necessary for happinessPhilosophical Studies 174 (10): 2613-2628. 2017.An argument for the eponymous conclusion is given through a series of hypothetical syllogisms, the most basic of which is as follows: morality is necessary for self-respect; self-respect is necessary for happiness; therefore, morality is necessary for happiness. Some of the most obvious objections are entertained and rejected.
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14Partially Re‐Humanized Ethics: Comments on ButchvarovSouthern Journal of Philosophy 41 (S1): 184-189. 2003.
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13Opening questions, following rulesIn Terry Horgan & Mark Timmons (eds.), Metaethics After Moore, Oxford University Press. pp. 169. 2006.
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39The Virtues of Happiness: A Theory of the Good LifeOup Usa. 2014.Undeniably, life is unfair. So, why play fairly in an unfair world? The answer comes from combining the ancient Greek conception of happiness with a modern conception of self-respect. The book is about why it is bad to be bad and good to be good, and what happens in between.
Areas of Specialization
Metaphysics |
Normativity |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |