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39Morality, Rules, and Consequences: A Critical Reader (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. 2000.What determines whether an action is right or wrong? Morality, Rules, and Consequences: A Critical Reader explores for students and researchers the relationship between consequentialist theory and moral rules. Most of the chapters focus on rule consequentialism or on the distinction between act and rule versions of consequentialism. Contributors, among them the leading philosophers in the discipline, suggest ways of assessing whether rule consequentialism could be a satisfactory moral theory. Th…Read more
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3Mill for a Broken WorldRevue Internationale de Philosophie 272 (2): 205-224. 2015.The majority of contemporary political philosophy is based on three assumptions, that (1) interests of present people can be reconciled under “favourable conditions” (Rawls), (2) things will go better for the next generation and (3) favourable conditions will continue indefinitely. But what if they don’t? The paper is exploring the hypothesis of a “broken world” where there is no hope to establish liberal institutions that can both meet basic needs and protect basic liberties. It argues that Mil…Read more
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4PersonhoodIn Robert E. Goodin, Philip Pettit & Thomas Pogge (eds.), A Companion to Contemporary Political Philosophy, Blackwell. 2017.Political philosophy is obviously concerned with people. If there were no people we would have no subject. But the contemporary significance of the concept of personhood is largely due to its central role in liberal political philosophy. Puzzles about personhood typically arise as objections to liberalism.
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511 Ruling Out Rule ConsequentialismIn Brad Hooker, Elinor Mason, Dale E. Miller, D. W. Haslett, Shelly Kagan, Sanford S. Levy, David Lyons, Phillip Montague, Tim Mulgan, Philip Pettit, Madison Powers, Jonathan Riley, William H. Shaw, Michael Smith & Alan Thomas (eds.), Morality, Rules, and Consequences: A Critical Reader, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. pp. 212-221. 2000.
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55Charting just futures for Aotearoa New Zealand: philosophy for and beyond the Covid-19 pandemicJournal of the Royal Society of New Zealand. forthcoming.The global pandemic needs to mark a turning point for the peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand. How can we make sure that our culturally diverse nation charts an equitable and sustainable path through and beyond this new world? In a less affluent future, how can we ensure that all New Zealanders have fair access to opportunities? One challenge is to preserve the sense of common purpose so critical to protecting each other in the face of Covid-19. How can we centre what we have learnt about resilience…Read more
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2Critical Notice of Jeff McMahan, The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (3): 443-459. 2004.
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PopulationIn Darrel Moellendorf & Heather Widdows (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Global Ethics, Routledge. 2014.
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37From Brad to worse: Rule‐consequentialism and undesirable futuresRatio 35 (4): 275-288. 2022.This paper asks how rule‐consequentialism might adapt to very adverse futures, and whether moderate liberal consequentialism can survive into broken futures and/or futures where humanity faces imminent extinction. The paper first recaps the recent history of rule‐consequentialist procreative ethics. It outlines rule‐consequentialism, extends it to cover future people, and applies it to broken futures. The paper then introduces a new thought experiment—the “ending world”—where humanity faces an e…Read more
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7Teoria etica e intuizioni in un mondo in frantumiSocietà Degli Individui 39 44-60. 2010.Il cambiamento climatico presenta caratteristiche inedite che mettono in discussione il pensiero morale cui siamo abituati. In questo saggio, si ricostruiscono le modifiche che sarebbero necessarie per pensare le questioni morali poste dalla prospettiva di un mondo che subisca gli effetti del cambiamento climatico: si potrebbe trattare di un mondo in frantumi, dove non ci sono piů le condizioni minime di benessere, e le nozioni cui siamo abituati - come certi diritti o l'ideale dell'eguaglianza …Read more
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20How Rule Consequentialism Avoids Boonin’s Implausible ConclusionLaw, Ethics and Philosophy 7. 2019.
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16UtilitarianismCambridge University Press. 2019.Moral theories can be distinguished, not only by the answers they give, but also by the questions they ask. Utilitarianism's central commitment is to the promotion of well-being, impartially considered. This commitment shapes utilitarianism in a number of ways. If scarce resources should be directed where they will best promote well-being, and if theoretical attention is a scarce resource, then moral theorists should focus on topics that are most important to the future promotion of well-being. …Read more
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16What if God is just not that into you?The Forum. 2017.Tim Mulgan asks whether the universe could have a non-human-centred purpose.
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40Corporate Agency and Possible FuturesJournal of Business Ethics 154 (4): 901-916. 2018.We need an account of corporate agency that is temporally robust – one that will help future people to cope with challenges posed by corporate groups in a range of credible futures. In particular, we need to bequeath moral resources that enable future people to avoid futures dominated by corporate groups that have no regard for human beings. This paper asks how future philosophers living in broken or digital futures might re-imagine contemporary debates about corporate agency. It argues that the…Read more
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20The Happiness Philosophers: The Lives and Works of the Great Utilitarians by Bart SchultzJournal of the History of Philosophy 56 (1): 179-180. 2018.Bart Schultz's fascinating study weaves together the lives and works of the four founders of classical utilitarianism—William Godwin, Jeremy Bentham, John Stuart Mill, and Henry Sidgwick—challenging historical interpretations and opening exciting new possibilities for contemporary moral and political philosophy. Schultz reminds us that the founders of utilitarianism were not lifeless proponents of a simplistic theory, but rounded individuals in whose hands the utilitarian project ranged widely o…Read more
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93Beyond Theism and Atheism: Axiarchism and Ananthropocentric PurposivismPhilosophy Compass 12 (6). 2017.Two familiar worldviews dominate Western philosophy: materialist atheism and Abrahamic theism. One exciting development in recent philosophy of religion is the exploration of alternatives to both theism and atheism. This paper explores two alternatives: axiarchism and ananthropocentrism. Drawing on the long tradition of Platonism, axiarchists such as John Leslie, Derek Parfit and Nicholas Rescher posit a direct link between goodness and existence. The goodness of a possible world is what makes i…Read more
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56Answering to Future People: Responsibility for Climate Change in a Breaking WorldJournal of Applied Philosophy 35 (3): 532-548. 2018.Our everyday notions of responsibility are often driven by our need to justify ourselves to specific others – especially those we harm, wrong, or otherwise affect. One challenge for contemporary ethics is to extend this interpersonal urgency to our relations with those future people who are harmed or affected by our actions. In this article, I explore our responsibility for climate change by imagining a possible ‘broken future’, damaged by the carbon emissions of previous generations, and then a…Read more
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The Demands of ConsequentialismRevue Philosophique de la France Et de l'Etranger 194 (3): 355-355. 2004.
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79III—Ethics for Possible FuturesProceedings of the Aristotelian Society 114 (1pt1): 57-73. 2014.I explore the moral implications of four possible futures: a broken future where our affluent way of life is no longer available; a virtual future where human beings spend their entire lives in Nozick's experience machine; a digital future where humans have been replaced by unconscious digital beings; and a theological future where the existence of God has been proved. These futures affect our current ethical thinking in surprising ways. They raise the importance of intergenerational ethics, alt…Read more
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75Roger Crisp and Brad Hooker , Well-being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin , pp. x + 316 (review)Utilitas 16 (3): 326-331. 2004.
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2Future People: A Moderate Consequentialist Account of Our Obligations to Future GenerationsPhilosophical Quarterly 57 (229): 679-685. 2007.
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15Replies to CriticsPhilosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche 4 (2). 2014.Download
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32One False Virtue of Rule Consequentialism, and One New VicePacific Philosophical Quarterly 77 (4): 362-373. 1996.A common objection to _act consequentialism (AC) is that it makes unreasonable demands on moral agents. _Rule consequentialism (RC) is often presented as a less demanding alternative. It is argued that this alleged virtue of RC is false, as RC will not be any less demanding in practice than AC. It is then demonstrated that RC has an additional (hitherto unnoticed) vice, as it relies upon the undefended simplifying assumption that the best possible consequences would arise in a society in which e…Read more
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74A Non-proportional Hybrid Moral TheoryUtilitas 9 (3): 291. 1997.A common objection to consequentialism is that it makes unreasonable demands upon moral agents, by failing to allow agents to give special weight to their own personal projects and interests. A prominent recent response to this objection is that of Samuel Scheffler, who seeks to make room for moral agents by building agent-centred prerogatives into a consequentialist moral theory. In this paper, I present a new objection to Scheffler's account. I then sketch an improved prerogative, which avoids…Read more
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82Transcending the infinite utility debateAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 80 (2). 2002.An infinite future thus threatens to paralyze utilitarianism. Utilitarians need principled ways to determine which possible infinite futures are better or worse. In this article, I discuss a recent suggestion of Peter Vallentyne and Shelly Kagan. I conclude that the best way forward for utilitarians is, in fact, to by-pass the infinite utility debate altogether. (edited)
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36A minimal test for political theoriesPhilosophia 28 (1-4): 283-296. 2001.Any adequate political theory must provide a plausible account of our obligations to future generations. It must also derive those obligations from morally significant features of our relationship to those who will live in the future, not from contingent accidents of human biology. The Minimal Test outlined in this paper offers a simple way to assess whether political theories are able to meet this challenge. It appears that several popular contemporary political theories will have difficulty pa…Read more
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13Critical Notice (review)Canadian Journal of Philosophy 34 (3): 443-459. 2004.In this exceptional new book, Jeff McMahan sets out to provide such an account. Along the way, he offers nuanced and illuminating accounts of personal identity, human nature, the badness of death, the wrongness of killing, the rights of animals, abortion, and euthanasia. This book is a major contribution to both moral theory and applied ethics, and makes a strong case for the relevance of the former to the latter. It is also beautifully written and a joy to read.
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Sidgwick, Origen, and the Reconciliation of Egoism and MoralityEtica E Politica 10 (2): 42-71. 2008.Many themes of late twentieth century ethics are prefigured in Sidgwick’s Method of Ethics. In particular, Sidgwick’s ‘Dualism of Practical Reason’ sets the scene for current debates over the demands of morality. Many philosophers agree that Sidgwick uncovers a deep and troubling conflict at the heart of utilitarian ethics. But Sidgwick’s own response to that conflict is treated, not as a live philosophical option, but as a historical oddity. In the twenty-first century, few philosophers see the…Read more