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548Respect for Autonomy in Medical EthicsIn David Archard, Monique Deveaux, Neil Manson & Daniel Marc Weinstock (eds.), Reading Onora O'Neill, Routledge. pp. 94-110. 2013.
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230Proportionality and Self-DefenseLaw and Philosophy 30 (3): 253-272. 2011.Proportionality is widely accepted as a necessary condition of justified self-defense. What gives rise to this particular condition and what role it plays in the justification of self-defense seldom receive focused critical attention. In this paper I address the standard of proportionality applicable to personal self-defense and the role that proportionality plays in justifying the use of harmful force in self-defense. I argue against an equivalent harm view of proportionality in self-defense, a…Read more
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123Responsibility and obligation: Some Kantian directionsInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 13 (4). 2005.This paper asks how we should conceptualize the relationship between responsibility and obligation. Its central concern is the relevance of considerations of obligation to the attribution of responsibility for what we do or bring about. The paper approaches this issue through an examination of Kant's complex, challenging and instructive theory of responsibility, in which strict obligation plays a pivotal role in attributions of responsibility for the outcomes of our actions. Even if we do not ac…Read more
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115Peter Singer and Non-Voluntary 'Euthanasia': tripping down the slippery slopeJournal of Applied Philosophy 9 (2): 203-219. 1992.This article discusses the nature of euthanasia, and the way in which redevelopment of the concept of euthanasia in some influential recent philosophical writing has led to morally less discriminating killing/letting die/not saving being misdescribed as euthanasia. Peter Singer's defence of non-voluntary ‘euthanasia’of defective infants in his influential book Practical Ethics is critically evaluated. We argue that Singer's pseudo-euthanasia arguments in Practical Ethics are unsatisfactory as ap…Read more
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89A critique of the preference utilitarian objection to killing peopleAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (2). 2002.Preference utilitarianism is widely considered a significant advance on classical utilitarianism when it comes to explaining why it is wrong to kill people. This paper focuses attention on the nature of the preference utilitarian 'direct' objection to killing a person and on the related claim that a person's preferences are non-replaceable. I argue that the preference utilitarian case against killing people is overstated and overrated. My concluding remarks indicate the relevance of this discuss…Read more
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68Self-Defence, Just War, and a Reasonable Prospect of SuccessIn Helen Frowe & Gerald R. Lang (eds.), How We Fight: Ethics in War, Oxford University Press. pp. 62-74. 2014.The Just War principle of jus ad bellum explicitly requires a reasonable prospect of success; the prevailing view about personal self-defence is that it can be justified even if the prospect of success is low. This chapter defends the existence of this distinction and goes on to explore the normative basis of this difference between defensive war and self-defence and its implications. In particular, the chapter highlights the rationale of the ‘success condition’ within Just War thinking and argu…Read more
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52Punishment as PenaltyCriminal Law and Philosophy 9 (1): 37-47. 2015.The paper’s central focus is the ‘duty’ theory of punishment developed by Victor Tadros in The Ends of Harm. In evaluating the ‘duty’ theory we might ask two broad closely related questions: whether in its own terms the ‘duty’ theory provides a justification of the imposition of hard treatment or suffering on an offender; and whether the ‘duty’ theory can provide a justification of punishment. This paper is principally concerned with the second question, which stems from a significant difference…Read more
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51Responsibility, Expertise and Trust: Institutional Ethics Committees and ScienceHumana Mente 8 (28): 169-185. 2015.This paper addresses what should be an important question for many institutional ethics committees: How might they justifiably trust external peer review of the scientific merit of research proposals under their consideration, since these committees are typically not constituted to review the science themselves?
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47Opportunistic TerrorismJournal of Moral Philosophy 11 (4): 395-410. 2014.This paper critically addresses two central aspects of Frances Kamm’s account of conceptual and evaluative issues of terrorism in ‘Terrorism and Intending Evil’, Ethics for Enemies (oup 2011), chapter 2. The paper engages with what Kamm says about cases in which an act done from a morally bad intention or motive overtly exactly mimics a justifiable act. I argue that in such a case, an actor’s intention to terrorise is more significant to the question of whether what he or she does is a terrorist…Read more
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43Killing Under DuressJournal of Applied Philosophy 6 (1): 53-70. 1989.The House of Lords ruled in R v Howe (1987) that Duress is not a defence to murder in English law. Some of the central arguments rested on a simple view about the nature of duress and the way in which duress is relevant in moral evaluation. This paper discusses legal and non-legal senses of duress, and argues that duress can be relevant to moral evaluation in a number of different ways. Some acts under duress are morally justified (here the defence of Duress is like that of Necessity) and some o…Read more
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38The Child’s Right to a VoiceRes Publica (4): 1-16. 2020.This article provides a philosophical analysis of a putative right of the child to have their expressed views considered in matters that affect them. Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 is an influential and interesting statement of that right. The article shows that the child’s ‘right to a voice’ is complex. Its complexity lies in the problem of contrasting an adult’s normative power of choice with a child’s weighted views, in the various senses in which …Read more
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36In defense of permissible killing: A response to two criticsLaw and Philosophy 19 (5): 627-633. 2000.Two articles have appeared in Law and Philosophy that provide detailed criticisms of aspects of my account of the justification of individual self-defense. One of these articles misconstrues central aspects of my account. The other raises a less central, but nonetheless an important issue that invites clarification. The criticisms raised in these two articles to which I respond here have important bearing on the nature of the justification of self-defense.
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35The Value of Applied PhilosophyIn Kimberley Brownlee, David Coady & Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen (eds.), A Companion to Applied Philosophy, Wiley-blackwell. 2016.The value of applied philosophy is often taken to consist in its contribution to our understanding of practical issues with which applied philosophy engages and in its contribution to their satisfactory resolution. This chapter examines the relationship between the nature of applied philosophy and its value. It regards the value of applied philosophy as dependent both on its philosophical quality and on its contribution to the understanding and (potential) resolution of practical issues with whi…Read more
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34Absolutely clean hands? Responsibility for what's allowed in refraining from what's not allowedInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 7 (2). 1999.This paper examines the absolutist grounds for denying an agent's responsibility for what he allows to happen in 'keeping his hands clean' in acute circumstances. In defending an agent's non-prevention of what is, viewed impersonally, the greater harm in such cases, absolutists typically insist on a difference in responsibility between what an agent brings about as opposed to what he allows. This alleged difference is taken to be central to the absolutist justification of non-intervention in acu…Read more
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32Permissible Killing: The Self-Defence Justification of HomicideCambridge University Press. 1994.Do individuals have a positive right of self-defence? And if so, what are the limits of this right? Under what conditions does this use of force extend to the defence of others? These are some of the issues explored by Dr Uniacke in this comprehensive 1994 philosophical discussion of the principles relevant to self-defence as a moral and legal justification of homicide. She establishes a unitary right of self-defence and the defence of others, one which grounds the permissibility of the use of n…Read more
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28Criminalising Unknowing DefenceJournal of Applied Philosophy 651-664. 2017.Should a legal plea of self- or third-party defence include an ‘awareness component’ that requires that the actor was aware of the justificatory facts at the time of action? Some theorists argue that in cases of so-called unknowing defence, where an actor in fact averts an otherwise unavoidable danger to himself or another person although unaware at the time of action that this is what he is doing, the objective facts alone should allow a plea of self- or third-party defence. Cases of unknowing …Read more
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25The Child’s Right to a VoiceRes Publica 27 (4): 521-536. 2020.This article provides a philosophical analysis of a putative right of the child to have their expressed views considered in matters that affect them. Article 12 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989 is an influential and interesting statement of that right. The article shows that the child’s ‘right to a voice’ is complex. Its complexity lies in the problem of contrasting an adult’s normative power of choice with a child’s weighted views, in the various senses in which …Read more
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21Rights and Relativistic Justifications: Replies to Kasachkoff and HusakLaw and Philosophy 19 (5): 645-647. 2000.No Abstract
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16The Doctrine of Double Effect and the Ethics of Dual UseIn Selgelid Michael & Rappert Brian (eds.), On the Dual Uses of Science and Ethics, Australian National University Press. pp. 153-163. 2013.
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13Self‐DefenseIn Hugh LaFollette (ed.), The International Encyclopedia of Ethics, Blackwell. 2013.The use of force in self-defense is widely regarded as morally justified. Perhaps for this reason self-defense received only sporadic attention in Western philosophy until relatively recently. In the thirteenth century St. Thomas Aquinas (see Aquinas, Saint Thomas) needed to reconcile permissible self-defense with his view that a private person must not kill intentionally; he sought to do this by distinguishing between intended, as opposed to (merely) foreseen, effects of an action and thus laid…Read more
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13On Getting One's Retaliation in FirstIn Henry Shue & David Rodin (eds.), Preemption: Military Action and Moral Justification, Oxford University Press. 2007.This chapter provides a general, philosophical account of the use of harmful force in self-defence as a type of retaliation. It argues that pre-emption — the use of harmful force for prevention — is not an act of self-defence. The associations between the concepts of retaliation, self-defence, and pre-emption are discussed.
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11In Defence of NecessityPhilosophia 51 (5): 2317-2325. 2023.This paper disputes Uwe Steinhoff’s view that a _jus ad bellum_ requirement of necessity can be merged with a condition of proportionality. It argues that the proposed merger detracts from a conceptual and moral understanding of the structure and rationale of both the necessity and the proportionality considerations applicable in a range of moral contexts, including those of war and so-called lesser evils cases, where these conditions are intended as action-guiding.
Melbourne, VIC, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Applied Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Philosophy of Law |
Social and Political Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |