Research

Here are some papers I've written. Abstracts for most are available at PhOnline.org. In the case of forthcoming or published papers, the posted draft is typically penultimate; please quote only from the published version. Please do not quote from drafts without permission. Comments are, of course, welcome at any stage.

(Note: "Moral Generalism: Enjoy in Moderation" and "A Theory of Hedged Moral Principles" amend in various ways, and therefore supersede, the thumbnail sketch of my account of moral principles presented in section 6 of "Particularism and Default Reasons".)

• A Theory of Hedged Moral Principles 
  Last revised 2 January 2008. (Provisionally forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 4, 2009.)
   

• Normative Appeals to the Natural  
  Forthcoming in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research.
   
• Some Good and Bad News for Ethical Intuitionism  
  Forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly (2008).
  (Available at Blackwell Synergy via OnlineEarly; requires institutional access.)
   
• Usable Moral Principles  
  In Challenging Moral Particularism, ed. M. Lance, M. Potrc, and V. Strahovnik (Routledge, 2008), 75-106.
   
• Moral Generalism: Enjoy in Moderation  
  Ethics 116 (July 2006): 707-41.
  (Available at Ethics Online; requires institutional access.)
   
• Ethical Theories and Moral Guidance  
  Utilitas 18 (Sept. 2006): 291-309.
  (The published version posted here with the publisher's permission. Also available at Cambridge Journals Online; requires institutional access.)
   
• Resisting the Buck-Passing Account of Value  
  Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 1, ed. R. Shafer-Landau (Oxford University Press, 2006), 295-324.
   
• Particularism and Default Reasons
  Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 7 (March 2004): 53-79.
  (Available at SpringerLink; requires institutional access.)
   

• Moral Realism  
  Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2nd edition, ed. Donald Borchert (Macmillan Reference USA, 2006).
   
• Review of Ethical Intuitionism: Re-evaluations, ed. Philip Stratton-Lake (Oxford UP, 2002).
  European Journal of Philosophy 14 (April 2006): 159-63. (Available at Blackwell Synergy; requires institutional access.)
   
• Review of Christian Illies, The Grounds of Ethical Judgement (Oxford UP, 2003).
  Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2004.03.11
   
• Review of Moral Particularism, ed. Brad Hooker and Margaret Little (Oxford UP, 2000).  
  Philosophical Review 111 (July 2002): 478-83.
   

This is supposed to be a serious page, but I can't resist a nerdy philosophy joke. So here it is: The Michael Caine Argument against direction-of-fit analyses of belief and desire.