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Virtues and Values, Without Disproportion or DysfunctionAustralasian Philosophical Review 6 (2): 172-179. 2022.ABSTRACT Pettigrove advances a persuasive case against the proportionality principle. In my view, the moral respect that his modus operandi account of virtue affords to each person’s ‘characteristic way of being’ is also to be applauded. While various philosophers have come to believe in the proportionality principle, it is something that presupposes a monistic account of value. Moreover, it is readily arguable that the kind of abstraction that this involves provides nothing more than an illusio…Read more
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120The newcomb problem: An unqualified resolutionSynthese 138 (2). 2004.The Newcomb problem is analysed here as a type of common cause problem. In relation to such problems, if you take the dominated option your expected outcome will be good and if you take the dominant option your expected outcome will be not so good. As is explained, however, these arenot conventional conditional expected outcomes but `conditional evidence expected outcomes' and while in the deliberation process, the evidence on which they are based is only hypothetical evidence.Conventional condi…Read more
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189Newcomb’s problem and its conditional evidence: a common cause of confusionSynthese 184 (3): 319-339. 2012.This paper aims to make three contributions to decision theory. First there is the hope that it will help to re-establish the legitimacy of the problem, pace various recent analyses provided by Maitzen and Wilson, Slezak and Priest. Second, after pointing out that analyses of the problem have generally relied upon evidence that is conditional on the taking of one particular option, this paper argues that certain assumptions implicit in those analyses are subtly flawed. As a third contribution, t…Read more
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Meta-Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Philosophy of Social Science |