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21The Relation of Moral Worth to the Good Will in Kant’s EthicsJournal of Philosophical Research 17 351-382. 1992.I consider three questions concerning the relation of the good will to the moral worth of actions. (1) Does a good will consist simply in acting from the motive of duty? (2) Does acting from the motive of duty presuppose that one has a good will? (3) Does the fact that one has a good wilI entail that all of one’s duty-fulfilling actions have moral worth, even if they are not (directly) motivated by duty? I argue that while only persons with a good will are capable of acting from the motive of du…Read more
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11Punishment and the Utilitarian Criterion of Right and WrongSouthern Journal of Philosophy 29 (1): 109-125. 1991.
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12Comments on "Kant Confronts Machiavelli"Proceedings of the Eighth International Kant Congress 1 723-726. 1995.
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Virtue and the Moral Law: An Analysis of Virtue and Moral Worth in Kant's Moral PhilosophyDissertation, The University of Wisconsin - Madison. 1984.My dissertation examines Kant's theory of virtue. It is in the first instance an analysis of Kant's two accounts of virtue for the purpose of formulating a unified Kantian theory of virtue. My intention, however, is not simply to argue for a particular interpretation of Kant's moral philosophy but also to present a credible theory of virtue grounded in Kant's ethical theory without treating the Kantian text as inviolable. My dissertation is thus not only an interpretation of Kant's ethics from a…Read more
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28Is Liberal Neutrality Insufficiently Egalitarian? Neutrality of Justification versus Strong EgalitarianismJournal of Philosophy 101 (12): 639-650. 2004.
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89Are virtues no more than dispositions to obey moral rules?Philosophia 20 (1-2): 195-207. 1990.Virtues are standardly understood as (1) essentially dispositions to perform certain actions and (2) having only instrumental value as motives to fulfill moral duties which can be fulfilled by persons lacking the virtue because the duties mandate only certain act-types. The argument of this article is that the duties of beneficence, gratitude and self-respect cannot be stated in terms of obligatory act-types because they cannot be fulfilled (except in deficient form) by persons lacking the appro…Read more
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119The Relation of Moral Worth to the Good Will in Kant’s EthicsJournal of Philosophical Research 17 351-382. 1992.I consider three questions concerning the relation of the good will to the moral worth of actions. (1) Does a good will consist simply in acting from the motive of duty? (2) Does acting from the motive of duty presuppose that one has a good will? (3) Does the fact that one has a good wilI entail that all of one’s duty-fulfilling actions have moral worth, even if they are not (directly) motivated by duty? I argue that while only persons with a good will are capable of acting from the motive of du…Read more
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32Punishment and the utilitarian criterion of right and wrongSouthern Journal of Philosophy 29 (1): 109-125. 1991.
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34Expensive preferences and the priority of right: A critique of welfare-egalitarianismJournal of Political Philosophy 5 (3). 1997.
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32Why preference-satisfaction cannot ground an egalitarian theory of justiceJournal of Social Philosophy 31 (3). 2000.
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105Rawls, the difference principle, and economic inequalityPacific Philosophical Quarterly 79 (4). 1998.Rawls’s theory of justice has been criticized for allowing individuals by their own voluntary choice to make themselves members of the ‘least advantaged’ class and thereby eligible, albeit undeservedly, for the benefits mandated by the Difference Principle. I argue, first, that this criticism overlooks the fact that the Difference Principle applies only to the lifetime expectations of representative persons and, second, that it is possible to implement the Difference Principle (and the social mi…Read more
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26From the "Groundwork" to the "Metaphysics of Morals:" What Happened to Morality in Kant's Theory of Justice?History of Philosophy Quarterly 12 (3). 1995.
Lubbock, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |