•  8
    Correction: The Conversational Practicality of Value Judgement
    The Journal of Ethics 27 (2): 231-232. 2023.
  •  91
    Responding to Normativity
    In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics: Volume 2, Clarendon Press. pp. 220-239. 2007.
    This paper defends the view that normative force depends on desire, by sketching an Argument from Voluntary Response which attempts to establish this dependence by appeal to the autonomous character of our experience of normative authority, and the voluntary character of our responses to it. I first offer an account of desiring as mentally aiming intrinsically at some end. I then argue that behaviour is only voluntary if it results from such aiming; hence all voluntary behaviour is produced by d…Read more
  •  136
    Normative concepts have a special taste, which many consider to be proof that they cannot be reductively analyzed into entirely nonnormative components. This paper demonstrates that at least some intuitively normative concepts can be reductively analyzed. I focus on so-called ‘hypothetical imperatives’ or ‘anankastic conditionals’, and show that the availability of normative readings of conditionals is determined by features of grammar, specifically features of tense. Properly interpreted, these…Read more
  •  92
    What might but must not be
    Analysis 80 (4): 647-656. 2020.
    We examine an objection to analysing the epistemic ‘might’ and ‘may’ as existential quantifiers over possibilities. Some claims that a proposition “might” be the case appear felicitous although, according to the quantifier analysis, they are necessarily false, since there are no possibilities in which the proposition is true. We explain such cases pragmatically, relying on the fact that ‘might’-sentences are standardly used to convey that the speaker takes a proposition as a serious option in re…Read more
  •  557
    A “Good” Explanation of Five Puzzles about Reasons
    Philosophical Perspectives 33 (1): 62-104. 2019.
    This paper champions the view (REG) that the concept of a normative reason for an agent S to perform an action A is that of an explanation why it would be good (in some way, to some degree) for S to do A. REG has numerous virtues, but faces some significant challenges which prompt many philosophers to be skeptical that it can correctly account for all our reasons. I demonstrate how five different puzzles about normative reasons can be solved by attention to the concept of goodness, and in partic…Read more
  •  76
    Reply to Worsnip, Dowell, and Koehn
    Analysis 80 (1): 131-147. 2020.
    This paper responds to comments on my 2014 book Confusion of Tongues by Alex Worsnip, Janice Dowell, and Glen Koehn. I first address Worsnip’s case for contextualism without relativism. Next I address Dowell’s and Worsnip’s scepticism about whether COT succeeds in providing an analytic reduction of the normative, and Dowell’s recommendation to pursue an alternative, synthetic method. I then consider Worsnip’s comments on COT’s implications for normative ethical theory, and end by responding to …Read more
  •  157
    This is a short precis of my 2014 book Confusion of Tongues: A Theory of Normative Language, accompanying my Reply to Worsnip, Dowell, and Koehn in the same volume.
  •  28
    Reasons as Defaults (review)
    Philosophical Review 124 (2): 286-289. 2015.
    Review of Jeff Horty's book REASONS AS DEFAULTS (OUP 2012)
  •  52
    What Does Value Matter? The Interest-Relational Theory of the Semantics and Metaphysics of Value
    Dissertation, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. 2001.
    Value and reasons for action are often cited by rationalists and moral realists as providing a desire-independent foundation for normativity. Those maintaining instead that normativity is dependent upon motivation often deny that anything called "value" or "reasons" exists. According to the interest-relational theory, something has value relative to some perspective of desire just in case it satisfies those desires, and a consideration is a reason for some action just in case it indicates that s…Read more
  •  1402
    Defining Normativity
    In Toh Kevin, Plunkett David & Shapiro Scott (eds.), Dimensions of Normativity: New Essays on Metaethics and Jurisprudence, Oxford University Press. pp. 62-104. 2019.
    This paper investigates whether different philosophers’ claims about “normativity” are about the same subject or (as recently argued by Derek Parfit) theorists who appear to disagree are really using the term with different meanings, in order to cast disambiguating light on the debates over at least the nature, existence, extension, and analyzability of normativity. While I suggest the term may be multiply ambiguous, I also find reasons for optimism about a common subject-matter for metanormati…Read more
  •  801
    Conceptual Analysis in Metaethics
    In Tristram McPherson & David Plunkett (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics, Routledge. pp. 536-551. 2017.
    A critical survey of various positions on the nature, use, possession, and analysis of normative concepts. We frame our treatment around G.E. Moore’s Open Question Argument, and the ways metaethicists have responded by departing from a Classical Theory of concepts. In addition to the Classical Theory, we discuss synthetic naturalism, noncognitivism (expressivist and inferentialist), prototype theory, network theory, and empirical linguistic approaches. Although written for a general philosoph…Read more
  •  484
    Quasi-Expressivism about Statements of Law: A Hartian Theory
    In John Gardner, Leslie Green & Brian Leiter (eds.), Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Law, vol. 3, Oxford University Press. pp. 49-86. 2018.
    Speech and thought about what the law is commonly function in practical ways, to guide or assess behavior. These functions have often been seen as problematic for legal positivism in the tradition of H.L.A. Hart. One recent response is to advance an expressivist analysis of legal statements (Toh), which faces its own, familiar problems. This paper advances a rival, positivist-friendly account of legal statements which we call “quasi-expressivist”, explicitly modeled after Finlay’s metaethical…Read more
  •  711
    Disagreement Lost and Found
    In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics 12, Oxford University Press. pp. 187-205. 2017.
    According to content-relativist theories of moral language, different speakers use the same moral sentences to say different things. Content-relativism faces a well-known problem of lost disagreement. Recently, numerous content-relativists (including the author) have proposed to solve this problem by appeal to various kinds of non-content-based, or broadly pragmatic, disagreement. This presents content-relativists with a new problem—of found agreement. Which (if any) of these newly identifie…Read more
  •  78
    Deontic Modality Today: Introduction
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 95 (4): 421-423. 2014.
    Introduction to a special issue of PPQ of papers from a conference on deontic modality held at USC in 2013.
  •  523
    Some intuitive normative principles raise vexing 'detaching problems' by their failure to license modus ponens. I examine three such principles (a self-reliance principle and two different instrumental principles) and recent stategies employed to resolve their detaching problems. I show that solving these problems necessitates postulating an indefinitely large number of senses for 'ought'. The semantics for 'ought' that is standard in linguistics offers a unifying strategy for solving these prob…Read more
  •  306
    Teaching & learning guide for: Moral realism and moral nonnaturalism
    with Stephen Finlay and Terence Cuneo
    Philosophy Compass 3 (3): 570-572. 2008.
  •  35
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  1042
    Metaethical Contextualism Defended
    Ethics 121 (1): 7-36. 2010.
    We defend a contextualist account of deontic judgments as relativized both to (i) information and to (ii) standards or ends, against recent objections that turn on practices of moral disagreement. Kolodny & MacFarlane argue that information-relative contextualism cannot accommodate the connection between deliberation and advice; we suggest in response that they misidentify the basic concerns of deliberating agents. For pragmatic reasons, semantic assessments of normative claims sometimes are eva…Read more
  •  1755
    The Reasons that Matter
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 84 (1). 2006.
    Bernard Williams's motivational reasons-internalism fails to capture our first-order reasons judgements, while Derek Parfit's nonnaturalistic reasons-externalism cannot explain the nature or normative authority of reasons. This paper offers an intermediary view, reformulating scepticism about external reasons as the claim not that they don't exist but rather that they don't matter. The end-relational theory of normative reasons is proposed, according to which a reason for an action is a fact tha…Read more
  •  498
    Recent work on normativity
    Analysis 70 (2): 331-346. 2010.
    Survey of some recent literature on normativity, including nonreductionist, neo-Aristotelian, neo-Humean, expressivist, and constructivist views
  •  467
    Oughts and ends
    Philosophical Studies 143 (3). 2008.
    This paper advances a reductive semantics for ‘ought’ and a naturalistic theory of normativity. It gives a unified analysis of predictive, instrumental, and categorical uses of ‘ought’: the predictive ‘ought’ is basic, and is interpreted in terms of probability. Instrumental ‘oughts’ are analyzed as predictive ‘oughts’ occurring under an ‘in order that’ modifer (the end-relational theory). The theory is then extended to categorical uses of ‘ought’: it is argued that they are special rhetorical u…Read more
  •  114
    Explaining Reasons
    Deutsches Jahrbuch Fuer Philosophie 4 112-126. 2012.
    What does it mean to call something a “reason”? This paper offers a unifying semantics for the word ‘reason’, challenging three ideas that are popular in contemporary philosophy; (i) that ‘reason’ is semantically ambiguous, (ii) that the concept of a normative reason is the basic normative concept, and (iii) that basic normative concepts are unanalyzable. Nonnormative uses of ‘reason’ are taken as basic, and as meaning explanation why. Talk about normative reasons for action is analyzed in te…Read more
  •  450
    Reasons for action: Internal vs. external
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2008.
    Often, when there is a reason for you to do something, it is the kind of thing to motivate you to do it. For example, if Max and Caroline are deciding whether to go to the Alcove for dinner, Caroline might mention as a reason in favor, the fact that the Alcove serves onion rings the size of doughnuts, and Max might mention as a reason against, the fact that it is so difficult to get parking there this time of day. It is some sign—perhaps not a perfect sign, but some sign—that each of these reall…Read more
  •  1141
    Too Much Morality
    In Paul Bloomfield (ed.), Morality and Self-Interest, Oxford University Press. 2007.
    This paper addresses the nature and relationship of morality and self-interest, arguing that what we morally ought to do almost always conflicts with what we self-interestedly ought to do. The concept of morality is analyzed as being essentially and radically other-regarding, and the category of the supererogatory is explained as consisting in what we morally ought to do but are not socially expected to do. I express skepticism about whether there is a coherent question, ‘Which ought I all thing…Read more
  •  85
    Review of John F. Horty, Reasons as Defaults (review)
    Philosophical Review 124 (2): 286-289. 2015.
    Review of J.F. Horty, REASONS AS DEFAULTS.
  •  193
    Rationalists including Nagel and Korsgaard argue that motivation to the means to our desired ends cannot be explained by appeal to the desire for the end. They claim that a satisfactory explanation of this motivational connection must appeal to a faculty of practical reason motivated in response to desire-independent norms of reason. This paper builds on ideas in the work of Hume and Donald Davidson to demonstrate how the desire for the end is sufficient for explaining motivation to the means. D…Read more
  •  268
    David Shoemaker argues from (A) psychopaths’ emotional deficiency, to (B) their insensitivity to moral reasons, to (C) their lack of criminal responsibility. This response observes three important ambiguities in this argument, involving the interpretation of (1) psychopaths’ emotional deficit, (2) their insensitivity to reasons, and (3) their moral judgements. Resolving these ambiguities presents Shoemaker with a dilemma: his argument either equivocates or it is falsified by the empirical eviden…Read more
  •  1251
    The conversational practicality of value judgement
    The Journal of Ethics 8 (3): 205-223. 2004.
    Analyses of moral value judgements must meet a practicality requirement: moral speech acts characteristically express pro- or con-attitudes, indicate that speakers are motivated in certain ways, and exert influence on others' motivations. Nondescriptivists including Simon Blackburn and Allan Gibbard claim that no descriptivist analysis can satisfy this requirement. I argue first that while the practicality requirement is defeasible, it indeed demands a connection between value judgement and moti…Read more