The routledge companion to ethics

THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION TO
ETHICS
The Routledge Companion to Ethics is an outstanding survey of the whole field of
ethics by a distinguished international team of contributors. Over 60 entries are
divided into six clear sections:







The history of ethics
Meta-ethics
Perspectives from outside ethics
Ethical perspectives
Morality
Debates in ethics.

The Companion opens with a comprehensive historical overview of ethics,
including entries on Plato, Aristotle, Hume and Kant, and the origins of ethical
thinking in China, India and the Middle East. The second part covers the
domain of meta-ethics, including entries on cognitivism and non-cognitivism,
explanation, reasons, moral realism and fictionalism. The third part covers
important challenges to ethics from the fields of anthropology, psychology,
sociobiology and economics. The fourth and fifth sections cover competing theories of ethics and the nature of morality respectively, with entries on consequentialism, Kantian morality, virtue ethics, relativism, morality and character,
evil, responsibility and particularism in ethics among many others. A comprehensive final section includes entries on the most important topics and controversies in applied ethics, including rights, justice and distribution, the end of
life, the environment, poverty, war and terrorism.
The Routledge Companion to Ethics is a superb resource for anyone interested in
the subject, whether in philosophy or related subjects such as politics, education,

or law. Fully indexed and cross-referenced, with helpful further reading sections,
it is ideal for those coming to the field of ethics for the first time as well as
readers already familiar with the subject.
John Skorupski is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of
St Andrews, Scotland. His books include Ethical Explorations (1999) and The
Domain of Reasons (forthcoming in 2010).


ROUTLEDGE PHILOSOPHY
COMPANIONS
Routledge Philosophy Companions offer thorough, high quality surveys and assessments of the major topics and periods in philosophy. Covering key problems,
themes and thinkers, all entries are specially commissioned for each volume and
written by leading scholars in the field. Clear, accessible and carefully edited and
organized, Routledge Philosophy Companions are indispensable for anyone coming
to a major topic or period in philosophy, as well as for the more advanced
reader.
The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics, Second Edition
Edited by Berys Gaut and Dominic Lopes
The Routledge Companion to Ethics
Edited by John Skorupski
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion
Edited by Chad Meister and Paul Copan
The Routledge Companion to the Philosophy of Science
Edited by Stathis Psillos and Martin Curd
The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophy
Edited by Dermot Moran
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film
Edited by Paisley Livingston and Carl Plantinga
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology
Edited by John Symons and Paco Calvo

The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics
Edited by Robin Le Poidevin, Peter Simons, Andrew McGonigal, and
Ross Cameron
The Routledge Companion to Nineteenth Century Philosophy
Edited by Dean Moyar


Forthcoming:
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Music
Edited by Andrew Kania and Theodore Gracyk
The Routledge Companion to Epistemology
Edited by Sven Bernecker and Duncan Pritchard
The Routledge Companion to Seventeenth Century Philosophy
Edited by Dan Kaufman
The Routledge Companion to Eighteenth Century Philosophy
Edited by Aaron Garrett
The Routledge Companion to Phenomenology
Edited by Søren Overgaard and Sebastian Luft
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Mental Disorder
Edited by Jakob Hohwy and Philip Gerrans
The Routledge Companion to Social and Political Philosophy
Edited by Gerald Gaus and Fred D’Agostino
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Language
Edited by Gillian Russell and Delia Graff Fara
The Routledge Companion to Theism
Edited by Charles Taliaferro, Victoria Harrison, and Stewart Goetz
The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Law
Edited by Andrei Marmor
The Routledge Companion to Islamic Philosophy
Edited by Richard C. Taylor and Luis Xavier López-Farjeat

PRAISE FOR THE SERIES
The Routledge Companion to Aesthetics
“This is an immensely useful book that belongs in every college library and on
the bookshelves of all serious students of aesthetics.” – Journal of Aesthetics and
Art Criticism
“The succinctness and clarity of the essays will make this a source that individuals
not familiar with aesthetics will find extremely helpful.” – The Philosophical
Quarterly
“An outstanding resource in aesthetics … this text will not only serve as a handy
reference source for students and faculty alike, but it could also be used as a text
for a course in the philosophy of art.” – Australasian Journal of Philosophy
“Attests to the richness of modern aesthetics … the essays in central topics –
many of which are written by well-known figures – succeed in being informative,
balanced and intelligent without being too difficult.” – British Journal of
Aesthetics
“This handsome reference volume … belongs in every library.” – Choice
“The Routledge Companions to Philosophy have proved to be a useful series of
high quality surveys of major philosophical topics and this volume is worthy
enough to sit with the others on a reference library shelf.” – Philosophy and
Religion

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion
“ … a very valuable resource for libraries and serious scholars.” – Choice
“The work is sure to be an academic standard for years to come … I shall
heartily recommend The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Religion to my students and colleagues and hope that libraries around the country add it to their
collections.” – Philosophia Christi

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Science
“With a distinguished list of internationally renowned contributors, an excellent
choice of topics in the field, and well-written, well-edited essays throughout, this
compendium is an excellent resource. Highly recommended.” – Choice
“Highly recommended for history of science and philosophy collections.” –
Library Journal
“This well conceived companion, which brings together an impressive collection
of distinguished authors, will be invaluable to novices and experience readers
alike.” – Metascience

The Routledge Companion to Twentieth Century Philosophy
“To describe this volume as ambitious would be a serious understatement. …
full of scholarly rigor, including detailed notes and bibliographies of interest to
professional philosophers. … Summing up: Essential.” – Choice

The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film
“A fascinating, rich volume offering dazzling insights and incisive commentary
on every page … Every serious student of film will want this book … Summing
Up: Highly recommended.” – Choice

The Routledge Companion to Metaphysics
“The Routledge Philosophy Companions series has a deserved reputation for
impressive scope and scholarly value. This volume is no exception … Summing
Up: Highly recommended.” – Choice



THE ROUTLEDGE COMPANION
TO ETHICS

Edited by
John Skorupski


First edition published 2010 by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2010.
To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s
collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.
© 2010 John Skorupski for selection and editorial matter; individual contributors for
their contributions
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised
in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or
hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
The Routledge companion to ethics / edited by John Skorupski.
p. cm. – (Routledge philosophy companions)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Ethics. I. Skorupski, John, 1946–
BJ21.R68 2010
170–dc22
2009050204

ISBN 0-203-85070-X Master e-book ISBN

Hbk ISBN 13: 978-0-415-41362-6
Ebk ISBN 13: 978-0-203-85070-1


CONTENTS
List of illustrations
Notes on contributors
Preface
PART I
History

xv
xvi
xxv

1

1 Ethical thought in China
YANG XIAO

3

2 Ethical thought in India
STEPHEN R. L. CLARK

21

3 Socrates and Plato
RICHARD KRAUT

31

4 Aristotle
CHRISTOPHER TAYLOR

41

5 Later ancient ethics
A. A. LONG

52

6 The Arabic tradition
PETER ADAMSON

63

7 Early modern natural law
KNUD HAAKONSSEN

76

8 Hobbes
BERNARD GERT

88

9 Ethics and reason
MICHAEL LEBUFFE

99

10 Ethics and sentiment: Shaftesbury and Hutcheson
MICHAEL B. GILL

111

11 Hume
JAMES A. HARRIS

122


CONTENTS

12 Adam Smith
CRAIG SMITH

133

13 Utilitarianism to Bentham
FREDERICK ROSEN

144

14 Kant
THOMAS E. HILL JR

156

15 Hegel
KENNETH R. WESTPHAL

168

16 John Stuart Mill
HENRY WEST

181

17 Sidgwick, Green, and Bradley
T. H. IRWIN

192

18 Nietzsche
MAUDEMARIE CLARK

204

19 Pragmatist moral philosophy
ALAN J. RYAN

217

20 Existentialism
JONATHAN WEBBER

230

21 Heidegger
STEPHEN MULHALL

241

PART II
Meta-ethics

251

22 Ethics, science, and religion
SIMON BLACKBURN

253

23 Freedom and responsibility
RANDOLPH CLARKE

263

24 Reasons for action
ROBERT AUDI

275

x

CONTENTS

25 The open question argument
THOMAS BALDWIN

286

26 Realism and its alternatives
PETER RAILTON

297

27 Non-cognitivism
ALEXANDER MILLER

321

28 Error theory and fictionalism
NADEEM J. Z. HUSSAIN

335

29 Cognitivism without realism
ANDREW FISHER

346

30 Relativism
NICHOLAS L. STURGEON

356

PART III
Ideas and methods from outside ethics

367

31 Social anthropology
JAMES LAIDLAW

369

32 Ethics and psychology
JESSE PRINZ

384

33 Biology
MICHAEL RUSE

397

34 Formal methods in ethics
ERIK CARLSON

408

35 Ethics and law
JOHN GARDNER

420

PART IV
Perspectives in ethics

431

36 Reasons, values, and morality
SIMON ROBERTSON

433

xi


CONTENTS

37 Consequentialism
BRAD HOOKER

444

38 Contemporary Kantian ethics
ANDREWS REATH

456

39 Ethical intuitionism
PHILIP STRATTON-LAKE

467

40 Virtue ethics
MICHAEL SLOTE

478

41 Contractualism
RAHUL KUMAR

490

42 Contemporary natural law theory
ANTHONY J. LISSKA

501

43 Feminist ethics
SAMANTHA BRENNAN

514

44 Ethics and aesthetics
ROBERT STECKER

525

PART V
Morality

537

45 Morality and its critics
STEPHEN DARWALL

539

46 Conscience
JOHN SKORUPSKI

550

47 Respect and recognition
ALLEN W. WOOD

562

48 Blame, remorse, mercy, forgiveness
CHRISTOPHER BENNETT

573

49 Evil
GEOFFREY SCARRE

584

xii

CONTENTS

50 Responsibility: Intention and consequence
SUZANNE UNIACKE

596

51 Responsibility: Act and omission
MICHAEL J. ZIMMERMAN

607

52 Partiality and impartiality
JOHN COTTINGHAM

617

53 Moral particularism
MICHAEL RIDGE AND SEAN MCKEEVER

628

PART VI
Debates in ethics

641

(i) Goals and ideals
54 Welfare

CHRISTOPHER HEATHWOOD

645

55 Ideals of perfection
VINIT HAKSAR

656

(ii) Justice
56 Rights
TOM CAMPBELL

669

57 Justice and punishment
JOHN TASIOULAS

680

58 Justice and distribution
MATTHEW CLAYTON

692

(iii) Human life
59 Life, death, and ethics
FRED FELDMAN

707

60 Ending life
R. G. FREY

720

(iv) Our world
61 Population ethics
TIM MULGAN

731

xiii


CONTENTS

62 Animals
ALAN CARTER

742

63 The environment
ANDREW BRENNAN AND NORVA Y. S. LO

754

(v) Current issues
64 The ethics of free speech
MARY KATE MCGOWAN

769

65 The ethics of research
JULIAN SAVULESCU AND TONY HOPE

781

66 World poverty
THOMAS POGGE

796

67 War
HENRY SHUE

808

68 Torture and terrorism
DAVID RODIN

820

832

Index

xiv

ILLUSTRATIONS
Figures
26.1 Branching taxonomy of meta-ethical positions with respect to
questions of realism.
34.1 A prisoner’s dilemma matrix (severity of harms to agents caused by
alternative choices).
45.1 Values of the outcomes of A’s and B’s choices in a prisoner’s
dilemma.

303
414
543

Tables
37.1 Calculating expected values.
66.1 Distribution of global household income converted at current market
exchange rates.
66.2 Consequences of choosing a level and baseline year for the
international poverty line.

450
798
801


CONTRIBUTORS
Peter Adamson is Reader of Philosophy at King’s College London. His main
areas of interest are ancient philosophy (especially Neoplatonism) and medieval philosophy (especially in Arabic). He is the author of The Arabic Plotinus,
and has published articles on Plotinus, al-Kindi, al-Farabi, Avicenna and other
figures from Greek and Arabic philosophy.

Robert Audi is Professor of Philosophy and David E. Gallo Chair in Ethics,
University of Notre Dame. He writes on epistemology, philosophy of action
and philosophy of religion as well as on moral and political philosophy. His
recent books include Religious Commitment and Secular Reason (2000), The
Architecture of Reason (2001), The Good in the Right: A Theory of Intuition and
Intrinsic Value (2004), Practical Reasoning and Ethical Decision (Routledge,
2006), and (as editor) The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (1995, 1999).
Thomas Baldwin is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of York, having
been previously a lecturer in philosophy at Cambridge University. He is currently editor of Mind.
Christopher Bennett is a lecturer in the Department of Philosophy, University
of Sheffield. His work has mainly concerned the moral emotions, punishment
and criminal justice.
Simon Blackburn is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge,
and Research Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His
books include: Spreading the Word (1984), Essays in Quasi-Realism (1993), The
Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy (1994), Ruling Passions (1998), Think (1999),
Being Good (2001), Lust (2004), Truth: A Guide (2005), Plato’s Republic (2006)
and How to Read Hume (2008).
Andrew Brennan is Professor and Chair of Philosophy at La Trobe University,
Melbourne, Australia, having previously been Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Western Australia and Reader in Philosophy at the
University of Stirling, Scotland.
Samantha Brennan is Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Department of
Philosophy at the University of Western Ontario. She works in contemporary normative ethics and political philosophy, including feminist
approaches to both. Brennan co-edited, with Anita Superson, Feminist Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, a special Issue of Hypatia (2005), and edited
Feminist Moral Philosophy, a Canadian Journal of Philosophy supplementary
(2003).


CONTRIBUTORS

Tom Campbell is Professor Fellow at Charles Sturt University and Convenor
of the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, an Australian
Research Council Special Research Centre. He has written extensively on
law and legal philosophy. He is author of Adam Smith’s Science of Morals
(1971), The Left and Rights (1983) and Justice (1988, 2nd edn forthcoming
in 2010). His Routledge book, Rights: A Critical Introduction, was published
in 2006.
Erik Carlson is Professor of Practical Philosophy at Uppsala University. His
areas of research include axiology, measurement theory, normative ethics, the
problems of free will and determinism, and decision theory. He has published
one book, Consequentialism Reconsidered (1995), and about thirty papers in
journals and anthologies.
Alan Carter is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. He
is the author of numerous articles and three books: A Radical Green Political
Theory, The Philosophical Foundation of Property Rights and Marx: A Radical
Critique. He is also joint editor of the Journal of Applied Philosophy.
Maudemarie Clark is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California–
Riverside. She is the author of Nietzsche on Truth and Philosophy (1990), cotranslator and -editor of Nietzsche’s On the Genealogy of Morality (1998), and
co-author of a work in progress on Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil.
Stephen R. L. Clark is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Liverpool.
His most recent book is G. K. Chesterton: Thinking Backward, Looking Forward
(2006), and his present work deals with the third-century Neoplatonist,
Plotinus.
Randolph Clarke is Professor of Philosophy at Florida State University. He is
the author of Libertarian Accounts of Free Will and of numerous articles on
agency, free will and moral responsibility.
Matthew Clayton is Associate Professor of Political Theory at the University of
Warwick. He works on issues concerning distributive justice and liberal political thought. His recent work includes Justice and Legitimacy in Upbringing
(2006) and he has co-edited The Ideal of Equality (2002) and Social Justice
(2004).

John Cottingham is Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at the University of
Reading, Professorial Research Fellow at Heythrop College, University of
London, and an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford. He is (since
1993) editor of the journal Ratio. His books include The Rationalists (1988),
Western Philosophy (2nd edn 2007), Philosophy and the Good Life (1998) and
The Spiritual Dimension (2005), and his edited collections include (with Brian
Feltham) Partiality and Impartiality (forthcoming in 2010).

xvii


CONTRIBUTORS

Stephen Darwall is the Andrew Downey Orrick Professor of Philosophy at Yale
University. He has written broadly on the history and foundations of ethics.
His books include Impartial Reason, The British Moralists and the Internal
“Ought,” Philosophical Ethics, Welfare and Rational Care and most recently The
Second-Person Standpoint: Morality, Respect, and Accountability. With David
Velleman, he is a founding co-editor of The Philosophers’ Imprint.
Fred Feldman, University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Author of Introductory
Ethics (1978), Doing the Best We Can: An Essay in Informal Deontic Logic (1986),
Confrontations with the Reaper: A Philosophical Study of the Nature and Value of
Death (1992), and Pleasure and the Good Life: On the Nature, Varieties, and
Plausibility of Hedonism (2004).
Andrew Fisher is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of Nottingham. His
research is primarily in meta-ethics and he has published in this area. He teaches
a large number of students on a wide range of subjects including meta-ethics. He
is co-editor with Simon Kirchin of Arguing about Metaethics (Routledge, 2006).
R. G. Frey is Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University and
Senior Research Fellow in the Social Philosophy and Policy Center there. He

is the author (and editor) of numerous books and articles in normative and
applied ethics.
John Gardner is Professor of Jurisprudence and a Fellow of University College,
Oxford. An occasional Visiting Professor at Yale Law School and a Bencher
of the Inner Temple, he was formerly Reader in Legal Philosophy at King’s
College London (1996–2000). He serves on the editorial boards of the Oxford
Journal of Legal Studies, Legal Theory, Law and Philosophy, The Journal of Moral
Philosophy, The Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, The Journal of International Criminal Justice and Criminal Law and Philosophy.
Bernard Gert is Stone Professor of Intellectual and Moral Philosophy, Emeritus,
Dartmouth College. He is the author of Morality: Its Nature and Justification
(revised edn, 2005), Common Morality: Deciding What to Do (2004) and Hobbes:
Prince of Peace (2010); first author of Bioethics: A Systematic Approach (2006),
and editor of Man and Citizen (1972, 1991).
Michael B. Gill is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Arizona. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill and is the author of The British Moralists on Human Nature and the
Birth of Secular Ethics (2006). He has also published numerous articles in the
history of philosophy, meta-ethical theory and medical ethics.
Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History and Director of the
Sussex Centre for Intellectual History, University of Sussex. He has published
extensively on early modern moral, legal and political philosophy and edits a
large series of natural law works.

xviii


CONTRIBUTORS

Vinit Haksar is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and an Honorary
Fellow, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, University

of Edinburgh. His publications include Equality, Liberty and Perfectionism
(1979), Indivisible Selves and Moral Practice (1991) and Rights, Communities and
Disobedience: Liberalism and Gandhi (2003).
James A. Harris is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St
Andrews. He is the author of Of Liberty and Necessity: The Free Will Debate in
Eighteenth-Century British Philosophy (2005). He is the editor of the forthcoming
Oxford Handbook of British Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century, and (with Aaron
Garrett) of the “Enlightenment” volume of A History of Scottish Philosophy
(general editor Gordon Graham).
Christopher Heathwood is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University
of Colorado at Boulder. He is the author of several articles on welfare and
other topics in ethics.
Thomas E. Hill Jr, Kenan Professor at University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill, is the author of Autonomy and Self-Respect; Dignity and Practical Reason in
Kant’s Moral Theory; Respect, Pluralism, and Justice; and Human Welfare and
Moral Worth. He edited the Blackwell Guide to Kant’s Ethics and, with Arnulf
Zweig, co-edited Kant’s Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals. Recent
essays concern Kantian constructivism, duties to oneself, virtue, revolution,
humanitarian interventions, and the treatment of criminals.
Brad Hooker is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Reading.
His book Ideal Code, Real World: A Rule-Consequentialist Theory of Morality
appeared in 2000. He has published articles on intuitionism, Kantianism,
particularism, human rights, desert, world hunger, impartiality, the demandingness of morality and friendship. His research monograph will be on
fairness.
Tony Hope is Professor of Medical Ethics at the University of Oxford, Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, and Fellow of St Cross College. He founded the
Ethox Centre. He has carried out research in basic neuroscience, Alzheimer’s
disease and clinical ethics. His books include the Oxford Handbook of Clinical
Medicine (editions 1–4); Manage Your Mind; Medical Ethics and Law; Medical
Ethics: A Very Short Introduction; and Empirical Ethics in Psychiatry.
Nadeem J. Z. Hussain is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Stanford

University. He specializes in meta-ethics and the history of late nineteenthcentury German philosophy. He assessed the resurgence of fictionalism in
contemporary meta-ethics in “The Return of Moral Fictionalism” in Philosophical
Perspectives (2004), and defended a fictionalist interpretation of Nietzsche in
“Honest Illusion: Valuing for Nietzsche’s Free Spirits,” in Nietzsche and Morality
(2007).

xix


CONTRIBUTORS

T. H. Irwin is Professor of Ancient Philosophy in the University of Oxford and
a Fellow of Keble College. From 1975 to 2006 he taught at Cornell University.
He is the author of Plato’s Gorgias (translation and notes 1979), Aristotle’s
Nicomachean Ethics (translation and notes 1999), Aristotle’s First Principles
(1988), Classical Thought (1989), Plato’s Ethics (1995) and The Development of
Ethics, 3 vols (2007–9).
Richard Kraut is the Charles E. and Emma H. Morrison Professor in the
Humanities at Northwestern University. He is the author of Socrates and the
State and How to Read Plato, and has edited the Cambridge Companion to Plato
and Plato’s Republic: Critical Essays.
Rahul Kumar is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Queen’s University,
Canada. He is a co-editor of Reasons and Recognition: Essays on the Philosophy
of T. M. Scanlon and is the author of several papers on Scanlonian
contractualism.
James Laidlaw is a Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and a University Le
cturer in the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
He has conducted research in India, Inner Mongolia and Taiwan. His
publications include Riches and Renunciation (1995); a two-volume collection
of the writings of the social anthropologist Edmund Leach, The Essential

Edmund Leach (2001); and two collections, both jointly edited with Harvey
Whitehouse: Ritual and Memory (2004) and Religion, Anthropology, and Cognitive Science (2007).
Michael LeBuffe is Assistant Professor at Texas A&M University. His recent
work includes “Spinoza’s Normative Ethics,” in Canadian Journal of Philosophy
(2007), and “The Anatomy of the Passions,” in the Cambridge Companion to
Spinoza’s Ethics (forthcoming).
Anthony J. Lisska, Maria Theresa Barney Professor of Philosophy at Denison University, has published Aquinas’s Theory of Natural Law and essays and
reviews on natural law. Past President of the American Catholic Philosophical Association, he received the Carnegie National Professor of the Year
award.
A. A. Long is Professor of Classics, Irving Stone Professor of Literature, and
affiliated Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, Berkeley. He
is author and editor of many books on ancient philosophy, including most
recently Epictetus: A Stoic and Socratic Guide to Life and From Epicurus to
Epictetus: Studies in Hellenistic and Roman Philosophy.
Norva Y. S. Lo is Lecturer in Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne,
Australia, having previously worked at the University of Hong Kong and the
Chinese University of Hong Kong.

xx


CONTRIBUTORS

Mary Kate McGowan is Class of 1966 Associate Professor of Philosophy at
Wellesley College. She has published in metaphysics, philosophy of language,
philosophy of law and analytic feminism and she is especially interested in
free speech issues in their intersection.
Sean McKeever is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Davidson College,
North Carolina. He is interested in contemporary moral theory, the history of
ethics and political philosophy. He is the author, with Michael Ridge, of

Principled Ethics: Generalism as a Regulative Ideal (2006), which critiques moral
particularism while developing and defending a generalist alternative.
Alexander Miller is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham.
He is the author of An Introduction to Contemporary Metaethics (2003), Philosophy of Language (Routledge, 2nd edn 2007) and co-editor (with Crispin
Wright) of Rule-Following and Meaning (2002).
Tim Mulgan is Professor of Moral and Political Philosophy at the University of
St Andrews. He is the author of The Demands of Consequentialism (2001),
Future People (2006) and Understanding Utilitarianism (2007).
Stephen Mulhall is Professor of Philosophy at New College, Oxford. His current
areas of research include Nietzsche, Sartre, Heidegger and Wittgenstein, the
philosophy of religion, and philosophy of literature. Recent publications
include The Wounded Animal: J. M. Coetzee and the Difficulty of Reality in
Literature and Philosophy (2009) and The Conversation of Humanity (2007).
Thomas Pogge received his PhD from Harvard. He is Leitner Professor of
Philosophy and International Affairs at Yale University, Professorial Fellow at
the Australian National University’s Centre for Applied Philosophy and
Public Ethics, Research Director at the Oslo University Centre for the Study
of Mind in Nature, and Adjunct Professor at the Faculty of Health and Social
Care of the University of Central Lancashire.
Jesse Prinz is Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at the City University of
New York Graduate Center. His research areas are philosophy of psychology,
philosophy of mind, aesthetics, consciousness and cognitive science. His
books include The Emotional Construction of Morals (2007), Gut Reactions: A
Perceptual Theory of Emotion (2004) and Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and Their
Perceptual Basis (2002).
Peter Railton is John Stephenson Perrin Professor of Philosophy at the
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His main research has been in ethics and
the philosophy of science, focusing especially on questions about the nature
of objectivity, value, norms and explanation. A collection of some of
his papers in ethics and meta-ethics, Facts, Values, and Norms, was published

in 2003.

xxi


CONTRIBUTORS

Andrews Reath is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California,
Riverside. He has worked extensively on Kant’s moral philosophy and
is author of Agency and Autonomy in Kant’s Moral Theory (2006). He
has co-edited two anthologies: with Barbara Herman and Christine
Korsgaard, Reclaiming the History of Ethics: Essays for John Rawls (1997); and
with Jens Timmermann, A Critical Guide to Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason
(2010).
Michael Ridge is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
His main research is in moral and political philosophy, though he also has
substantial research interests in action theory, the philosophy of mind and the
history of philosophy. He is the author, with Sean McKeever, of Principled
Ethics: Generalism as a Regulative Ideal (2006).
Simon Robertson is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow working on the Nietzsche
and Modern Moral Philosophy project at the University of Southampton. His
main research interests lie at the intersection of normative ethics, meta-ethics
and practical reason.
David Rodin is Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, where he
co-directs the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict, and
Senior Fellow at the Carnegie Council for Ethic and International Affairs in
New York. His publications include War and Self-Defense (2002), which was
awarded the American Philosophical Association Sharp Prize, as well as of
articles in leading philosophy and law journals and a number of edited books,
including Preemption (2007) and Just and Unjust Warriors (2008).

Frederick Rosen is Professor Emeritus of the History of Political Thought and
Honorary Research Fellow at the Bentham Project, University College
London. He was formerly Director of the Bentham Project and General
Editor of The Collected Works of Jeremy Bentham. He is currently writing a
book on the moral and political philosophy of John Stuart Mill.
Michael Ruse is Lucyle T. Werkmeister Professor of Philosophy at Florida State
University. He is the author of many books on the history and philosophy
of science, including Monad to Man: The Concept of Progress in Evolutionary
Biology, Can a Darwinian be a Christian? The Relationship between Science
and Religion and most recently Science and Spirituality: Making Room for Faith
in the Age of Science.
Alan J. Ryan was Warden of New College, Oxford, from 1996 to 2009. He is
currently a Visiting Scholar at Princeton University. Professor Ryan has
written extensively on liberalism and its history, on theories of property, and
on issues in the philosophy of the social sciences; among his books are Liberal
Anxieties and Liberal Education (1998), John Dewey and the High Tide of
American Liberalism (1995) and Russell: A Political Life (2003).

xxii


CONTRIBUTORS

Julian Savulescu is Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics and Director of the Oxford
Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford. He is also
Director of the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and of the Program on
the Ethics of the New Biosciences at the University of Oxford. Professor
Savulescu is the author of over 200 publications and has given more than 100
international presentations.
Geoffrey Scarre is Professor of Philosophy at Durham University, UK, where he

teaches and researches mainly in the areas of moral theory and applied ethics.
He has recently published books on death and on Mill’s On Liberty; his most
recent book is On Courage (Routledge, forthcoming in 2010).
Henry Shue is Senior Research Fellow at Merton College, Oxford, and
Professor of Politics and International Relations. His research has focused on
the role of human rights, especially economic rights, in international affairs,
and, more generally, on institutions to protect the vulnerable. He is best
known for his book on international distributive justice, Basic Rights.
John Skorupski is Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of
St Andrews. His books include John Stuart Mill (Routledge, 1989), Ethical
Explorations (1999) and The Domain of Reasons (forthcoming in 2010).
Michael Slote is UST Professor of Ethics at the University of Miami. He has
recently been working at the intersection of virtue ethics, care ethics and
moral sentimentalist thought, and has just published three books: Moral Sentimentalism (an account of normative ethics and meta-ethics in sentimentalist
terms); Essays on the History of Ethics (containing discussions of both ancient
and modern views); and Selected Essays (a collection of published articles and
some new papers).
Craig Smith is Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of St Andrews. He is
the author of Adam Smith’s Political Philosophy: The Invisible Hand and
Spontaneous Order (Routledge, 2006), and is book review editor of the Adam
Smith Review.
Robert Stecker is Professor of Philosophy at Central Michigan University. He is the
author of Artworks: Definition, Meaning, Value; Interpretation and Construction: Art,
Speech and the Law; and Aesthetics and the Philosophy of Art: An Introduction.
Philip Stratton-Lake is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Reading.
His main research interests are Kant, ethical intuitionism, meta-ethics and
normative ethics. His book Kant, Duty and Moral Worth was published by
Routledge in 2000.
Nicholas L. Sturgeon is a Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University. He has
published a number of articles on foundational issues in meta-ethics and on

the history of modern moral philosophy.

xxiii


CONTRIBUTORS

John Tasioulas is Reader in Moral and Legal Philosophy at the University of
Oxford and Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. His research interests
are in moral philosophy, legal philosophy, and political philosophy. He is
currently engaged in a project on the philosophy of human rights funded by a
British Academic Research Development Award.
Christopher Taylor is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, Oxford University,
and an Emeritus Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.
Suzanne Uniacke is Reader in Applied Ethics at the University of Hull. Before
moving to the United Kingdom in 2001 she taught philosophy in Australia.
She has published widely in normative moral theory, applied ethics and philosophy of law.
Jonathan Webber is a lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University. He is the
author of The Existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre (Routledge, 2009), and numerous philosophical articles on moral psychology and applied ethics.
Henry R. West is Professor of Philosophy at Macalester College, Saint Paul,
Minnesota. His publications on Mill include An Introduction to Mill’s Utilitarian
Ethics (2004), The Blackwell Guide to Mill’s Utilitarianism (2006) and Mill’s
Utilitarianism: A Reader’s Guide (2007).
Kenneth R. Westphal is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Kent,
Canterbury. He has published widely on both Kant’s and Hegel’s theoretical
and practical philosophies, in both systematic and historical perspective. He
edited The Blackwell Guide to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit (2009).
Allen W. Wood is Ward W. and Priscilla B. Woods Professor at Stanford
University. He has also been on the faculty of Cornell University and Yale
University, has held visiting appointments at the University of Michigan and

the University of California, San Diego, and has held fellowships from the
Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
He is author and editor of numerous books and author of numerous articles,
chiefly on topics in ethics and on the philosophy of Kant, Fichte, Hegel and
Marx.
Yang Xiao is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Kenyon College, USA. He
has published essays on Confucian moral psychology, philosophy of language
in early Chinese texts and Chinese political philosophy. He is currently
working on a book manuscript on early Chinese ethics.
Michael J. Zimmerman is Professor of Philosophy at the University of North
Carolina at Greensboro. He is the author of both books and articles on
the conceptual foundations of human action, moral responsibility, moral
obligation and intrinsic value.

xxiv