B.Phil. 2004, D.Phil. 2007, University of Oxford
Prior to September 2008: Research Fellow, ANU
I have wide-ranging philosophical interests. My present research focuses on the relation of ethical theory to practice. I am especially interested in normative reasons, virtue, moral principles, and the forms of moral knowledge that might be available to us either pre-theoretically or through philosophical reflection.
Teaching
During the 2009-10 academic year, I will be teaching Introduction to Ethics, History of Ethics, and Contemporary Ethical Theory.
Research
I am writing a monograph, Knowing Better (under contract with Oxford University Press), as well as editing and writing all of the commentary for History of Ethics: Essential Readings with Commentary (under contract with Blackwell Publishing).
A selection of papers can be accessed below. Other papers that I am working on include Two Levels of Moral Thinking (where I provide a new account of the relationship of pre-philosophical commitments to normative ethical theory), and After Virtue Ethics (where I argue for a particular conception of virtue).
Reasons: Explanations or Evidence? (coauthored with Stephen Kearns) [pdf]
Ethics 118:4 (October), 2008.
Note: John Broome provides a response to our paper in the October 2008 issue of Ethics, and John Brunero provides a paper-length response in his "Reasons and Evidence One Ought" in Ethics (April 2009). We are presently preparing a response to critics, part of which was presented at the Pacific APA, 2009.
Abstract: John Broome thinks a person's normative reasons for action are either explanations
concerning what she ought to do, or parts of explanations concerning
what she ought to do. We think a person's normative reasons for
action are evidence concerning what she ought to do . We argue that one apparent
advantage that Broome's account has over ours – it aims to capture a
common thought that an essential role that normative reasons play is to
make it the case that I ought to do whatever it is I ought to do
– is really only apparent, and that we are better placed to make sense
of the thought that normative reasons make it the case that I ought to do whatever it is I ought to do.
Reasons as Evidence (coauthored with Stephen Kearns) [pdf]
Forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Metaethics 4, 2009.
Abstract: In this paper, we argue for a particular informative and unified analysis of normative reasons. According to this analysis, a fact F is a reason to act in a certain way just in case it is evidence that one ought to act in that way. Similarly, F is a reason to believe a certain proposition just in case it is evidence for the truth of this proposition. Putting the relatively uncontroversial claim about reasons for belief to one side, we present several arguments in favor of our analysis of reasons for action. We then turn to consider a series of objections to the analysis. We conclude that there are good reasons to accept the analysis and that the objections do not succeed.
Moral Knowledge, Epistemic Externalism, and Intuitionism [pdf]
Ratio 21:3 (September), 2008, 329-343.
Abstract: This paper explores the generally overlooked relevance of an important contemporary debate in mainstream epistemology to philosophers working within ethics on questions concerning moral knowledge. It is argued that this debate, between internalists and externalists about the accessibility of epistemic justification, has the potential to be both significantly influenced by, and have a significant impact upon, the study of moral knowledge. The moral sphere provides a particular type of strong evidence in favour of externalism, and mainstream epistemologists might benefit from paying attention to this fact. At the same time, the terrain of moral epistemology (approached as a subfield of metaethics) needs to be reshaped by the realisation that externalists can steal the thunder of intuitionists when it comes to knowledge constituted by seemingly self-evident beliefs.
Long Review of Sean McKeever and Michael Ridge, Principled Ethics (OUP, 2006) [link]
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2007.
Do Confucians Really Care? [pdf]
Hypatia 17:1, 2002, 77-106. This paper was accepted for publication before I began my graduate studies at Oxford.
Abstract: Chenyang Li argues, in an article originally published in Hypatia, that the ethics of care and Confucian ethics constitute similar approaches to ethics. The present paper takes issue with this claim. It is more accurate to view Confucian ethics as a kind of virtue ethics, rather than as a kind of care ethics. In the process of criticizing Li’s claim, the distinctiveness of care ethics is defended, against attempts to assimilate it to virtue ethics.