Suppose I wanted to get up to speed on the buck-passing-account literature. What three to five things would you say are "must reading"?
Suppose I wanted to get up to speed on the buck-passing-account literature. What three to five things would you say are "must reading"?
That’s tough. I don’t know that reading only five articles could get you up to speed. But here are five recommendations. I’m sure, though, that I’m leaving out some important stuff (e.g., the stuff by Heathwood and others on whether buck-passing can give an account of good for).
(1) OLSON, J. (2009). “Fitting Attitude Analyses of Value and the Partiality Challenge.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice DOI: 10.1007/s10677-009-9176-4 (published online May 5, 2009).
(2) RABINOWICZ, W. and RØNNOW-RASMUSSEN, T. (2004). “The Strike of the Demon: On Fitting Pro-Attitudes and Value.” Ethics 114: 391-423.
(3) SCHROEDER, M. ‘Value and the Right Kind of Reason.’ Provisionally forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Metaethics; this (drafty) draft for presentation at the 5th annual Wisconsin Metaethics Workshop.
(4) SCHROEDER, M. ‘Buck-Passers’ Negative Thesis.’ Forthcoming in a special issue of Philosophical Explorations, edited by Nicolas Southwood and Bruno Verbeek.
(5) STRATTON-LAKE, P. (2005). “How to Deal with Evil Demons: Comment on Rabinowicz and Rønnow-Rasmussen.” Ethics 115: 788-798.
I would also add Scanlon’s “What We Owe to Each Other”.
I would add this, and perhaps read it first for historical context:
Jonanthan Dancy, ‘Should We Pass the Buck?’, in A. O’Hear ed. The Good, the True and The Beautiful (CUP, 2000), pp. 159-73
I recently wrote a review article on the topic for the Philosophy Compass that goes through much of the discussion so far. It also collects most of the sources in the literature for further reading. This should be up on the Philosophy Compass any day now but if anyone wants I can email the paper to them.
Many thanks, everyone.