Lest anyone think that Campbell Brown went on a murderous rampage against all other PEA Brains to take over the blog for himself, I feel I should jump in and post something to let people know the rest of us are alive and to pick […] Read More
Within consequentialism, it’s common to draw a distinction between two kinds of rightness: an act X is said to be objectively right just when, among the alternatives open to the agent, X will, as a matter of objective fact, have the best consequences; whereas X […] Read More
In an earlier post, Supererogation for Maximisers, I tried to reconcile two apparently irreconcilable claims: first, that maximising consequentialism is true; and, second, that supererogatory action is possible. Subsequently, the same topic has received significant attention in the comments to another post, Favourite Objections to […] Read More
Thomas Hobbes argued famously that, if a group of human individuals were ever to find themselves in the conflict-ridden “state of nature” that he envisioned — an unenviable situation in which every individual faces the rather grim prospects of a “nasty, brutish, and short” life […] Read More
Doubtless few would disagree that those who wrongfully harm others owe something to those they harm. This ‘debt’ can be conceptualized as compensation, punishment, the "re-balancing" of the moral relationship between the harmer and the harmed, or as an instrument of rehabilitation or forgiveness. But […] Read More
The conference is on the philosophical challenge of naturalism, and it is being hosted by the Rutgers Institute for Law and Philosophy. The conference will be in Camden on June 7th, with a keynote address and dinner the night before. The web page can be […] Read More
Here’s an ethical issue (actually, a pair of them) which I’m sure all of us have faced, or will. Sometimes students come to instructors seeking letters of recommendation – for graduate school, for jobs, for postdocs, or what have you. And sometimes these students are […] Read More
Value objectivists like myself tend to think of practical reasoning as the process by which an agent forms beliefs about what things have value, and then organizes those beliefs in order to act in a way that makes sense in light of them. But suppose […] Read More
PEA Brain Dave Shoemaker, paraphrasing his colleague, Steve Wall, suggested only half in jest that all philosophers who are sports fans really want to write about philosophy of sports. Being accurately pegged, here is some sports ethics. In particular, amidst all the brouhaha over […] Read More