Reasons and Explanation in Moral Theory

The first major strand of my research comes out of my work in graduate school, and concerns the nature of reasons and explanation in ethical theory. The core of this research is my first book, Slaves of the Passions (Oxford 2007), and representative highlights appear in my first volume of collected papers, Explaining the Reasons We Share (Oxford 2014).

The main themes in this work concern whether and how morality can be explained, and when it is that moral differences are best explained by underlying moral similarities. I also classify as parts of this strand of my work contributions to the history of moral philosophy, especially work on the Cambridge Platonist Ralph Cudworth and on Kant’s account of hypothetical imperatives, and work concerning the fundamental nature of what is at stake between consequentialist and non-consequentialist moral theories.

In Slaves of the Passions, which grew immediately out of my doctoral dissertation, I defended a kind of Humean or desire-based theory of the nature of normative reasons by showing how most of the best objections to Humean theories are really objections to stronger interpretations of Humean commitments. The book also constitutes a kind of robust defense of a form of reductive naturalism in metaethics.

My most recent contribution to this strand of my work is ‘A Common Subject for Ethics.,’ forthcoming in Mind.

Metaphysics of Reasons

‘Reasons and Agent-Neutrality.’  Philosophical Studies 135(2): 279-306, August 2007.  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

‘The Humean Theory of Reasons.’  Oxford Studies in Metaethics 2: 195-219, April 2007.  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

‘Précis of Slaves of the Passions.’  Philosophical Studies.  157(3): 432-434, February 2012.

‘Reply to Shafer-Landau, McPherson, and Dancy.’  Philosophical Studies.  157(3): 463-474, February 2012.

'The Unity of Reasons.'  Forthcoming in Daniel Star, ed., The Oxford Handbook to Reasons and Normativity (forthcoming from Oxford University Press).

‘Getting Perspective on Objective Reasons.’  Forthcoming in Ethics.  Posted September 2017.

Particularism

‘A Matter of Principle.’  Joint critical notice of Jonathan Dancy, Ethics Without Principles, and Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge, Principled Ethics.  Noûs 43(3): 568-580, September 2009.

‘Holism, Weight, and Undercutting.’  Noûs 454(2): 328-344, June 2011.

Moral Metaphysics

‘Realism and Reduction: The Quest for Robustness.’  The Philosophers’ Imprint 5(1): www.philosophersimprint.org/005001/, February 2005.

‘Huemer’s Clarkeanism.’  Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 78(1): 201-208, January 2009.

‘Supervenience Arguments Under Relaxed Assumptions.’  With Johannes Schmitt.  Philosophical Studies 155(1): 133-160, August 2011.  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

‘The Price of Supervenience.’  Published in Explaining the Reasons We Share.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 124-144, May 2014.

History of Ethics

‘The Hypothetical Imperative?’  Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83(3): 357-372, September 2005.  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

‘Cudworth and Normative Explanations.’  Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, www.jesp.org, (2005), vol. 1, no. 3, October 2005.  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

General Metaethics

'What Matters About Metaethics?'  In Parfit's Defense of Objectivity in Ethics and Practical Reasoning, a volume of new essays on Derek Parfit's On What Matters, edited by Peter Singer (Oxford University Press).  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

'Normative Ethics and Metaethics.'  In Tristram McPherson and David Plunkett, eds., The Routledge Handbook to Metaethics (forthcoming from Routledge).

'A Common Subject for Ethics.'  Forthcoming in Mind.

'Willing Belief.'  In International Journal for the Study of Skepticism, in a symposium on Bart Streumer's Unbelievable Errors.

Instrumental Rationality

‘The Scope of Instrumental Reason.’  Philosophical Perspectives 18 (Ethics): 337-364, November 2004.

'Instrumental Mythology.’  Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, www.jesp.org, (2005), symposium 1, December 2005.

‘Means-End Coherence, Stringency, and Subjective Reasons.’  Philosophical Studies 143(2): 223-248, March 2009.  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

‘Scope for Rational Autonomy.’  Philosophical Issues 23: 297-310, August 2013.  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

‘Hypothetical Imperatives, Scope, and Jurisdiction.’  In Reason, Value, and Respect, edited by Robert Johnson and Mark Timmons.  Oxford: Oxford University Press, 89-100, March 2015.  Reprinted in Explaining the Reasons We Share.

Value Theory

‘Not So Promising After All: Evaluator-Relative Teleology and Common-Sense Morality.’  Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87(3): 348-356, September 2006.

‘Teleology, Agent-Relative Value, and ‘Good’.’  Ethics 117(2): 265-295, January 2007.

‘Buck-Passers’ Negative Thesis.’  Philosophical Explorations 12(3): 341-347, July 2009.

Wrong Kind of Reasons

‘Value and the Right Kind of Reasons.’  Oxford Studies in Metaethics 5: 25-55, August 2010.

‘The Ubiquity of State-Given Reasons.’  Ethics 122(3): 457-488, April 2012.

‘State-Given Reasons: Prevalent, if not Ubiquitous.’  Ethics 124(1): 128-140, October 2013.