Here are some papers I've written. Comments are of course welcome. Please don't cite drafts without permission.
Consequentialise This
Ethics, 121(4), 2011, pp. 749-771.
Updated: 18-02-2011
Abstract. To 'consequentialise' is to take a putatively non-consequentialist moral theory and show that it is actually just another form of consequentialism. Some have speculated that every moral theory can be consequentialised. If this were so, then consequentialism would be empty; it would have no substantive content. As I argue here, however, this is not so. Beginning with the core consequentialist commitment to 'maximising the good', I formulate a precise definition of consequentialism and demonstrate that, given this definition, several sorts of moral theory resist consequentialisation. My strategy is to decompose consequentialism into three conditions, which I call 'agent neutrality', 'no moral dilemmas', and 'dominance', and then to exhibit some moral theories which violate each of these.
A New and Improved Supervenience Argument for Ethical Descriptivism
In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Vol. 6, 2011.
Updated: 23-07-2010
Abstract. Ethical descriptivism is the view that all ethical properties are descriptive properties. Frank Jackson has proposed an argument for this view which begins with the premise that the ethical supervenes on the descriptive, any worlds that differ ethically must differ also descriptively. This paper observes that Jackson's argument has a curious structure, taking a linguistic detour between metaphysical starting and ending points, and raises some worries stemming from this. It then proposes an improved version of the argument, which avoids these worries, and responds to some potential objections to this version of the argument.
The Utility of Knowledge
Erkenntnis, 2011.
Abstract. Recent epistemology has introduced a new criterion of adequacy for analyses of knowledge: such an analysis, to be adequate, must be compatible with the common view that knowledge is better than true belief. One account which is widely thought to fail this test is reliabilism, according to which, roughly, knowledge is true belief formed by reliable process. Reliabilism fails, so the argument goes, because of the "swamping problem". In brief, provided a belief is true, we do not care whether or not it was formed by a reliable process. The value of reliability is "swamped" by the value of truth: truth combined with reliability is no better than truth alone. This paper approaches these issues from the perspective of decision theory. It argues that the "swamping effect" involves a sort of information-sensitivity that is well modelled decision-theoretically. It then employs this modelling to investigate a strategy, proposed by Goldman and Olsson, for saving reliabilism from the swamp, the so-called "conditional probability solution". It concludes that the strategy is only partially successful.
Better Never to Have Been Believed: Benatar on the Harm of Existence
Economics & Philosophy, 27:1 (2011), 45-52.
Paper begins: In Better Never to Have Been, David Benatar argues that existence is always a harm (Benatar 2006, pp. 18--59). His argument, in brief, is that this follows from a theory of personal good which we ought to accept because it best explains several 'asymmetries'. I shall argue here (a) that Benatar's theory suffers from a defect which was already widely known to afflict similar theories, and (b) that the main asymmetry he discusses is better explained in a way which allows that existence is often not a harm.
Better than Nothing
Updated: 03-02-2012
Abstract. A good life, or a life worth living, is a one that is "better than nothing". At least that is a common thought. But it is puzzling. What does "nothing" mean here? It cannot be a quantifier in the familiar sense, yet nor, it seems, can it be a referring term. To what could it refer? This paper aims to resolve the puzzle by examining a number of analyses of the concept of a life worth living. Temporal analyses, which exploit the temporal structure of lives, are distinguished from non-temporal ones. It is argued that the temporal analyses are better.
A Dilemma for 'No Ought From Is'
Abstract. The 'No Ought From Is' principle faces a dilemma. If 'mixed' sentences, i.e., those containing both ethical and non-ethical predicates, are included as 'oughts', then the principle is false. But if mixed sentences are excluded, then the principle is irrelevant to ethics, because ethical arguments typically involve mixed sentences. This paper proposes a solution to the dilemma: a sentence is to be counted as an 'ought' just in case it has ethical ontological commitments. This interpretation of No Ought From Is is shown to be both true and relevant.
Upholding Hume's Law by Overturning a Prior Conviction
Updated: 08-06-2011
Abstract. Hume's Law states that a valid argument cannot have an ethical conclusion and non-ethical premises. Prior proposes the following counterexample: `Tea-drinking is common in England; therefore, either tea-drinking is common in England or all New Zealanders ought to be shot.' One strategy for responding to Prior is to restrict Hume's Law to arguments that contain no `mixed sentences', i.e., sentences like the disjunctive conclusion in Prior's example. Here I examine this strategy in the context of first-order logic. I consider five interpretations of Hume's Law, three of which I show to be true.
Here are some slides for a presentation of the paper I gave at Edinburgh's Omega Series Seminar, the best feature of which is the caricature of Hume, which I drew.
The Composition of Reasons
Updated: 25-10-2011
Abstract. How do reasons combine? How is it that several reasons taken together can have a combined weight which exceeds the weight of any one alone? I propose an answer in mereological terms: reasons combine by composing a further, complex reason of which they are parts. Their combined weight is the weight of their combination. I develop a mereological framework, and use this to investigate some structural views about reasons, the main two being "Atomism" and "Holism". Atomism is the view that atomic reasons are fundamental: all reasons reduce to atomic reasons. Holism is the view that whole reasons are fundamental. I argue for Holism, and against Atomism. I also consider whether reasons might be "context-sensitive".
Here are some slides for a presentation of the paper I gave at a Workshop at the LSE.
Supervenience, Reduction, and Relations
Slides for a talk I gave at the 2011 Australasian Association of Philosophy Conference.