•  224
    The Balancing View of Ought
    Ethics 134 (2): 246-267. 2024.
    I defend a novel way of working out the Balancing View of Ought, that is, the view that whether one ought to take some action depends on nothing but the balance of the reasons for the action and those against it or for its alternatives. I show that the Balancing View needs to be complemented by certain principles of reason transmission, at least one of which might seem rather surprising. The result is an attractive theoretical package that allows for compelling explanations of noteworthy normati…Read more
  •  238
    How Reasons Determine Moral Requirements
    In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics Volume 18, Oxford University Press. pp. 97-115. 2023.
    Cases of heroic supererogation have been taken to suggest that non-moral reasons are morally relevant. While non-moral reasons are unable to make actions morally required, they can prevent moral reasons from doing so. I argue that non-moral reasons are morally relevant in yet another way, since they can also play an essential role in making it the case that an action is morally required. Even though non-moral reasons are not able themselves to make actions morally required, they can prevent reas…Read more
  •  31
    Vom Allgemeinen zum Einzelfall Die orientierende Funktion moralischer Prinzipien
    Zeitschrift für Philosophische Forschung 66 (4). 2012.
  •  51
    Accounting for Moral Conflicts
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (1): 9-19. 2016.
    In his recent book The Dimensions of Consequentialism, Martin Peterson defends, amongst other things, the claim that moral rightness and wrongness come in degrees and that, therefore, the standard view that an act’s being morally right or wrong is a one-off matter ought to be rejected. An ethical theory not built around a gradualist conception of moral rightness and wrongness is, according to Peterson, unable to account adequately for the phenomenon of moral conflicts. I argue in this paper that…Read more
  •  22
    Muss man Ontologie betreiben, um Normativität zu verstehen?
    Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie 58 (1): 149-153. 2010.
  •  39
    Die Herausforderung des ethischen Relativismus
    In Julian Nida-Rümelin (ed.), Moral, Wissenschaft und Wahrheit, De Gruyter. pp. 111-130. 2016.
  •  91
    Instrumentalism about practical reason: not by default
    Philosophical Explorations 19 (1): 17-27. 2016.
    Instrumentalism is the view that all requirements of practical reason can be derived from the instrumental principle, that is, from the claim that one ought to take the suitable means to one's ends. Rationalists, by contrast, hold that there are requirements of practical reason that concern the normative acceptability of ends. To the extent that rationalists put forward these requirements in addition to the instrumental principle, rationalism might seem to go beyond instrumentalism in its normat…Read more