•  19
    A New Puzzle For Hedonistic Theories of Value
    Journal of Philosophical Research 42 115-130. 2017.
    Most of us would feel awful if we discovered that our beloved had been unfaithful. But the hedonist, I argue, cannot consistently claim: that a betrayal that goes undetected does not make your life worse off for you; and, at the same time, that one ought to feel bad if one happens to discover that one has been betrayed. To claim that one ought to feel bad requires adducing reasons for that reaction, but the hedonist either can adduce no such reasons or cannot make sense of the reasons we intuiti…Read more
  •  109
    The Caveman's Conscience: Evolution and Moral Realism
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 87 (2): 215-233. 2009.
    An increasingly popular moral argument has it that the story of human evolution shows that we can explain the human disposition to make moral judgments without relying on a realm of moral facts. Such facts can thus be dispensed with. But this argument is a threat to moral realism only if there is no realist position that can explain, in the context of human evolution, the relationship between our particular moral sense and a realm of moral facts. I sketch a plausible evolutionary story that illu…Read more
  •  70
    Good samaritans, good humanitarians
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 24 (3). 2007.
    Duties of beneficence are not well understood. Peter Singer has argued that the scope of beneficence should not be restricted to those who are, in some sense, near us. According to Singer, refusing to contribute to humanitarian relief efforts is just as wrong as refusing to rescue a child drowning before you. Most people do not seem convinced by Singer’s arguments, yet no one has offered a plausible justification for restricting the scope of beneficence that doesn’t produce counterintuitive results…Read more
  •  215
    Evolution and the possibility of moral realism (review)
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 77 (1): 237-244. 2008.
    A commentary on Richard Joyce's The Evolution of Morality.
  •  111
    Offering the first general introductory text to this subject, the timely _Introduction to_ _Evolutionary Ethics_ reflects the most up-to-date research and current issues being debated in both psychology and philosophy. The book presents students to the areas of cognitive psychology, normative ethics, and metaethics. The first general introduction to evolutionary ethics Provides a comprehensive survey of work in three distinct areas of research: cognitive psychology, normative ethics, and metaeth…Read more
  •  159
    Consequentialists insist there is no rational basis for distinguishing between determinate victims and indeterminate victims. Whether it's a child drowning at our feet or needy communities abroad, our reason to help is the same. Experimental data indicate, however, that we regularly make such distinctions. In this article, I show that there are indeed persuasive normative grounds for preserving this distinction. When potential beneficiaries are determinate, they have a special claim on us ground…Read more