Associate Professor
Books
Knowing Right From Wrong, Oxford University Press,
forthcoming
Internal
Reasons: Contemporary Readings, co-edited with Hille Paakkunainen, MIT Press, 2012
Reasons without Rationalism, Princeton University Press,
2007.
Reviews:
Matthew Hanser; Ralph Wedgwood.
Symposium:
Summary, Michael Bratman,
Michael Smith,
Reply
Critical Study: Matthew
Silverstein
Articles
Intention, Plans, and Ethical
Rationalism,
draft of 12/10/11; comments welcome
Argues
from the planning theory of intention – as an account of means-end
coherence – to a comprehensive form of ethical rationalism. Having raised
objections to this result, the paper ends by sketching a way out.
What is a Reason to Act? draft of 11/28/11; comments welcome
Argues
for a conception of reasons as premises of practical reasoning. This conception
is applied to questions about ignorance, advice, enabling conditions,
"ought," and evidence.
Transparency and Inference, forthcoming in Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society
Argues
that doubts about the inference from p to I believe that p do not support reflective theories
of self-knowledge over an inferential or rule-following view. (This note is a
reply to Matthew Boyle, "Transparent Self-Knowledge," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
Supplementary Volume 85: 223-241.)
Internal Reasons, in Kieran Setiya and Hille
Paakkunainen, eds., Internal Reasons:
Contemporary Readings (MIT 2012)
Argues
that "internalism about reasons" owes its appeal to a function
argument from the nature of agency. Internalism is thus revealed as a species
of ethical rationalism. (This paper introduces a volume of recent work on
internal and external reasons.)
Does Moral Theory Corrupt Youth? Philosophical Topics 38 (Spring 2010;
published Fall 2011)
Argues
that the answer is yes. The epistemic assumptions of moral theory deprive us of
resources needed to resist the challenge of moral disagreement, which its
practice at the same time makes vivid. Ends with tentative thoughts about the
kind of epistemology that could respond to disagreement without
scepticism: one in which the fundamental standards of justification for moral
belief are biased towards the truth.
Knowledge of
Intention,
in Anton Ford, Jennifer Hornsby, and Fred
Stoutland, eds., Essays on Anscombe's
Intention (Harvard 2011)
Argues
that it is not by inference from intention that I know what I am doing
intentionally. Instead, the reverse is true: groundless knowledge of intention
rests on the will as a capacity for non-perceptual, non-inferential knowledge
of action. The argument adapts and clarifies considerations of
"transparency" more familiar in connection with belief.
Reasons
and Causes,
European Journal of Philosophy 19
(March 2011)
Argues
for a causal-psychological account of acting for reasons. This view is
distinguished from a more ambitious causal theory of action, clarified as far
as possible, and motivated – against non-reductive, teleological, and behaviourist alternatives – on broadly metaphysical
grounds.
Sympathy for the Devil, in Sergio
Tenenbaum, ed., Desire, Practical Reason, and
the Good (Oxford 2010)
Argues
against "the guise of the good" as a claim about rational agency,
conceding that it may hold true as a principle of human nature. Themes
discussed along the way – extending the argument of Reasons without Rationalism – include: desires as appearances
of the good, the intelligibility of vice, and the kind of essentialist claim
that permits exceptions.
Practical Knowledge
Revisited,
Ethics 120 (October 2009)
Argues
that the view propounded in "Practical Knowledge" survives objections
made by Sarah Paul ("Intention, Belief, and Wishful Thinking," Ethics 119: 546-557). The response gives
more explicit treatment to the nature and epistemology of knowing how.
Believing
at Will,
Midwest Studies in Philosophy 32
(September 2008)
Argues
that we cannot form beliefs at will without failure of attention or logical
confusion. The explanation builds on Williams' argument in "Deciding to
Believe," attempting to resolve some well-known difficulties. The paper
ends with tentative doubts about the idea of judgement as intentional action.
Practical
Knowledge, Ethics 118
(April 2008)
Argues
that we know without observation or inference at least some of what we are
doing intentionally and that this possibility must be explained in terms of
knowledge how. It is a consequence of the argument that knowing how to do
something cannot be identified with knowledge of a proposition.
Cognitivism
About Instrumental Reason, Ethics
117 (July 2007)
Argues
for a "cognitivist" account of the
instrumental principle, on which it is the application of theoretical reason to
the beliefs that figure in our intentions. This doctrine is put to work in
solving a puzzle about instrumental reason that plagues alternative views.
Is Efficiency a Vice? American Philosophical Quarterly 42
(October 2005)
Argues
against the form of instrumentalism on which being practically rational is
being efficient in the pursuit of one's ends. The trait of means-end efficiency
turns out to be a defect of character, and therefore cannot be identified with
practical reason at its best.
Hume on Practical Reason, Philosophical Perspectives 18 (December
2004)
Argues
that Hume was a sceptic about practical reason only
on a rationalist account of what it would have to be. (This version differs
substantially from the published paper.)
Explaining
Action,
Philosophical Review 112 (July 2003;
published September 2004)
Argues
that, in acting for a reason, one takes that reason to explain one's action, not to justify
it: reasons for acting need not be seen "under the guise of the
good." The argument turns on the need to explain the place of
"practical knowledge" – knowing what one is doing – in
intentional action. (A revised and expanded version of this material appears in
Part One of Reasons without Rationalism.)
Against
Internalism,
Noûs 38
(June 2004)
Argues that practical irrationality is akin to moral
culpability: it is defective practical thought which one could legitimately
have been expected to avoid. It is thus a mistake to draw too tight a
connection between failure to be moved by reasons and practical irrationality
(as in a certain kind of "internalism"): one's failure may be
genuine, but not culpable, and therefore not irrational.
Intention, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
(August 2009)
Reviews
Review
of Saving God and Surviving Death by Mark Johnston, Ethics 121 (January 2010)
Review of Appearances of the Good, by Sergio Tenenbaum,
NDPR (May 2007)
Review of Agency and Answerability: Selected Essays,
by Gary Watson, Mind 114 (July
2005)
Philosophical Review 114 (January
2005)