The last time my wife and I were in London together, we had dinner at the Garrick Club with an eminent political philosopher and his wife. We’d walked out on some horrible West End play after the ...

Think of all the billions of people there are in the world. Scads of innocent people die all the time. Why not spread happiness and reduce the death toll at the same time? Hard cheese on the appointed ...

I noted in my last post that many science-minded moral philosophers suggest that morality should aspire towards utilitarian goals (maximizing welfare for the greatest number of people/beings). I also ...

"We are all Benthamites now!" declared my Criminal Law lecturer at university. And never has the axiom that the way measure right and wrong is the greatest happiness for the greatest number been more ...

Since February's release of a Crime Commission report that promised to shine a bright light into some dark corners of Australian sport, hardly a week has passed without news of another potential ...

Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Vol. 18, No. 4, Special Issue: BSET-2014 (August 2015), pp. 717-729 (13 pages) I argue that utilitarianism cannot accommodate a basic sort of moral judgment that ...

A healthcare worker in green scrubs stands in the middle of an intersection, staring down a traffic jam of screaming protesters demanding a return to their livelihoods and liberties. The photograph, ...

We sure could use John Stuart Mill right about now. For anyone who doesn't recognize the name, Mill is the 19th-century British philosopher known for his study of economics, his passionate defense of ...