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721The Future in Our Hands? - A Dialectical Argument against Legalising EuthanasiaSolidarity: The Journal of Catholic Social Thought and Secular Ethics 6 (1). 2016.In this paper I argue that no state should legalise euthanasia, either voluntary or non-voluntary. I begin by outlining three political arguments against such legalisation, by Russell Hittinger, Elizabeth Anscombe and David Novak. Each concludes, on different grounds, that legalised euthanasia fatally erodes the role and authority of the state. Although correct in their conclusion, the arguments they provide are deficient. To fill this gap, I elaborate what I call a ‘fourfold dialectic’ between …Read more
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Ontological and epistemological foundations of human rightsIn Tom P. S. Angier, Iain T. Benson & Mark Retter (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of natural law and human rights, Cambridge University Press. 2022.
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The perennial and dynamic relationship between human rights and naturalIn Tom P. S. Angier, Iain T. Benson & Mark Retter (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of natural law and human rights, Cambridge University Press. 2022.
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6Aristotle on workRevue Internationale de Philosophie 278 (4): 435-449. 2017.I begin by detailing the semantic range of the English terms ‘work’ and ‘labour’, in comparison with that of their closest Greek equivalents. Narrowing matters down to work in the sense of ‘occupation’, what is striking about Aristotle, I maintain, is his willingness to sort occupations into a hierarchy. This hierarchy is fourfold. At the bottom we have servile work, which is directed at life’s ‘necessities’, and is founded on mere habit. Then we have technē or skilled work, which typically prod…Read more
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24‘Natural Inclinations’ in Aquinas and his Modern InterpretersRevista Portuguesa de Filosofia 79 (1-2): 261-284. 2023.In this paper, I tackle Aquinas’s notion of ‘natural inclinations’, specifically as it occurs in his seminal elaboration of the natural law in Summa Theologiae I-II. Question 94. Article 2. Maintaining that it constitutes a departure from Aristotle’s terminology, and is hence puzzling, I go on to investigate a raft of modern, mainly Anglophone, interpretations of the concept. Beginning with Jacques Maritain, I move through the broadly chronological sequence of John Finnis, Jean Porter, Steven Je…Read more
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16Skill in Ancient Ethics: The Legacy of China, Greece and Rome (edited book)Bloomsbury Academic. 2021.This collection illustrates the centrality of skill within ancient ethics, including ancient Chinese ethics, showing how skill or techne has been a touchstone from the beginning of philosophical thought. Covering Socrates' search for expertise in virtue, the Republic's 'craft of justice', Aristotle's delineation of the politike techne and the Stoics' 'art of life'. Divided into four sections on Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Chinese ethics, it brings together world-leading philosophers working…Read more
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23MacIntyre's After Virtue at 40 (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2023.Since its publication in 1981, Alasdair MacIntyre's After Virtue has made a significant impact throughout the humanities disciplines. This new collection unpacks the influence of After Virtue on ethical and political theory, sociology and theology, and offers a multi-faceted exploration of its significance.
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27Practical Philosophy: Ethics, Society and Culture. By John Haldane. (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2009. Pp. xv + 400. Price £17.95.)Philosophical Quarterly 62 (246): 199-202. 2012.
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8The history of evil (edited book)Routledge, Taylor & Francis GroupVolume I. The history of evil in antiquity : 2000 BCD-450 CE -- volume II. The history of evil in the medieval age : 450-1450 -- volume III. The history of evil in the early modern age : 1450-1700 -- volume IV. The history of evil in the 18th and 19th centuries : 1700-1900 -- volume V. The history of evil in the early twentieth century : 1900-1950 -- volume VI. The history of evil from the mid-twentieth century to today : 1950-2018.
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10The achievement of David Novak: a Catholic-Jewish dialogue (edited book)Pickwick Publications. 2021.This book is a Festschrift offered by twelve Catholic theologians and philosophers to the great Jewish theologian David Novak. Each of the twelve essays is followed by a response by David Novak, and it thereby represents a significant addition to his oeuvre. The book includes an introduction by Matthew Levering surveying Novak's many contributions to Jewish-Christian dialogue, as well as a transcribed conversation between Robert George and David Novak that encapsulates Novak's sense of the prese…Read more
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1Ontological and epistemological foundations of human rightsIn Tom P. S. Angier, Iain T. Benson & Mark Retter (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of natural law and human rights, Cambridge University Press. 2022.
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The perennial and dynamic relationship between human rights and naturalIn Tom P. S. Angier, Iain T. Benson & Mark Retter (eds.), The Cambridge handbook of natural law and human rights, Cambridge University Press. 2022.
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62The Cambridge handbook of natural law and human rights (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2022.This Handbook provides an intellectually rigorous and accessible overview of the relationship between natural law and human rights. It fills a crucial gap in the literature with leading scholarship on the importance of natural law as a philosophical foundation for human rights and its significance for contemporary debates. The themes covered include: the role of natural law thought in the history of human rights; human rights scepticism; the different notions of 'subjective right'; the various f…Read more
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14David McPherson, Virtue and Meaning: A Neo-Aristotelian PerspectiveJournal of Moral Philosophy 18 (6): 655-658. 2021.
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7Aristotle and prescription - (f.) alesse Aristotle on prescription. Deliberation and rule-making in Aristotle's practical philosophy. (Philosophia antiqua 152.) Pp. XII + 273. Leiden and boston: Brill, 2019. Cased, €151, us$182. Isbn: 978-90-04-38538-2 (review)The Classical Review 70 (1): 42-44. 2020.
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20Plato and Aristotle on Virtue and Practical ReasonIn Christoph Halbig & Felix Timmermann (eds.), Handbuch Tugend Und Tugendethik, Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden. pp. 147-163. 2021.In this chapter, I argue that Plato and Aristotle provide analyses of virtue and practical reason that are strongly shaped by the structure of the technai. Socrates assimilates virtue to skill, while Aristotle assimilates practical reason to a means-end technique. While both philosophers are sensitive to the problems these technē models generate, and try either to escape or to remedy them, they nonetheless remain under the impress of those models. I end by drawing a general lesson from this fasc…Read more
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Natural Law TheoryCambridge University Press. 2021.In Section 1, I outline the history of natural law theory, covering Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics and Aquinas. In Section 2, I explore two alternative traditions of natural law, and explain why these constitute rivals to the Aristotelian tradition. In Section 3, I go on to elaborate a via negativa along which natural law norms can be discovered. On this basis, I unpack what I call three 'experiments in being', each of which illustrates the cogency of this method. In Section 4, I investigate and r…Read more
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49Happiness as Subjective Well-Being: An Aristotelian CritiqueRevista Portuguesa de Filosofia 76 (1): 149-180. 2020.In this paper I systematically criticise Feldman’s and Haybron’s theories of happiness as subjective well-being [SWB]. Having elaborated their trichotomy between SWB, welfare and virtue, I then outline Aristotle’s rival ethical schema, which construes these as aspects within an inextricable, organic whole, viz. eudaimonia. In order to vindicate this rival schema, I begin with four thought-experiments: Feldman’s Bertha, the indoctrinated housewife, Haybron’s ‘happy slave’, and two of my own. I ar…Read more
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34From Natural Character to Moral Virtue in AristotlePhilosophical Quarterly 70 (278): 201-204. 2020.From Natural Character to Moral Virtue in Aristotle. By Leunissen Mariska.
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90Two Dogmas of (Modern) Aristotle ScholarshipAncient Philosophy Today 1 (2): 237-255. 2019.Two dogmas lie at the heart of modern work on Aristotle's ethical theory. The first is that that theory is essentially secular or non-theistic. The second is that Aristotle's ethics assumes what Gr...
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12The Cambridge Companion to Natural Law Ethics (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2019.Natural law ethics centres on the idea that ethical norms derive from human nature. The field has seen a remarkable revival since the millennium, with new work in Aristotelian metaphysics complementing innovative applied work in bioethics, economics and political theory. Starting with three chapters on the history of natural law ethics, this volume moves on to various twentieth-century theoretical innovations in the tradition, and then to natural law as embedded in the three Abrahamic faiths. It…Read more
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18Virtue Ethics. Critical Concepts in Philosophy (edited book)Routledge. 2018.Explorations about and around the ethics of virtue dominated philosophical thinking in the ancient world, and recent moral philosophy has seen a massive revival of interest in virtue ethics as a rival to Kantian and utilitarian approaches. To help users make sense of the gargantuan--and, often, dauntingly complex--body of literature on the subject, this new four-volume collection is the latest addition to Routledge's acclaimed Critical Concepts in Philosophy series. The editor has carefully asse…Read more
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18Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis (review)Philosophical Quarterly 64 (255): 318-322. 2014.A detailed review of the 2013 Festschrift for John Finnis
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58Aristotle and the Rediscovery of Citizenship – Susan D. Collins (review)Philosophical Quarterly 61 (243): 431-434. 2011.Book review
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32Ethics: the key thinkers (edited book)Bloomsbury Academic. 2012.Plato Tom Angier -- Aristotle Timothy Chappell -- Stoics Jacob Klein -- Aquinas Vivian Boland O.P -- Hume Peter Millican -- Kant Ralph Walker -- Hegel Kenneth Westphal -- Marx Sean Sayers -- Mill Krister Bykvist -- Nietzsche Ken Gemes and Christoph Schuringa -- Macintyre David Solomon.
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311The Retrieval of Ethics – Talbot Brewer (review)Philosophical Quarterly 60 (241): 884-886. 2010.
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76Alasdair MacIntyre's Analysis of TraditionEuropean Journal of Philosophy 22 (4): 540-572. 2011.I argue that, in analysing the structure and development of moral traditions, MacIntyre relies primarily on Kuhn's model of scientific tradition, rather than on Lakatos' model. I unpack three foci of Kuhn's conception of the sciences, namely: the ‘crisis’ conception of scientific development, what I call the ‘systematic conception’ of scientific paradigms, and the view that successive paradigms are incommensurable. I then show that these three foci are integrated into MacIntyre's account of the …Read more
Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa
Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy |
Areas of Interest
Social and Political Philosophy |
19th Century Philosophy |