Research areas

• Metaphysics (causation, dispositions, laws of nature, chance)
• Moral theory (rights, liability, responsibility)
• Applied philosophy (negligence law, insurance)

Miscellany

• Monash philosophers are a collaborative bunch. This page identifies the network of research collaborations they have engaged in (last updated September 2008).
• I am involved in a project investigating use of Peer Instruction to teach philosophy and other humanities

The papers provided here are either works in progress or final drafts before publication. For citation purposes, please seek permission or refer to published version.

Metaphysics

1. The Metaphysics of Dispositions and Causes. In Dispositions and Causes, ed. T. Handfield. Oxford: OUP, forthcoming in 2009.

   This article gives a general overview of recent metaphysical work on dispositional properties and causal relations. It serves as an introduction to the forthcoming volume, Dispositions and Causes, which includes contributions from Stephen Barker, Alexander Bird, Nancy Cartwright, Richard Corry, Antony Eagle, Marc Lange, Jennifer McKitrick, Tim O'Connor, and Ann Whittle.

2. Humean Dispositionalism. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 86 (2008): 113–26.

   Humean metaphysics is characterised by a rejection of necessary connections between distinct existences. Dispositionalists claim that there are basic causal powers. The existence of such properties is widely held to be incompatible with the Humean rejection of necessary connections. In this paper I present a novel theory of causal powers that vindicates the dispositionalist claim that causal powers are basic, without embracing brute necessary connections. The key assumptions of the theory are that there are natural types of causal processes, and that manifestations of powers are identified with certain kinds of causal processes. From these assumptions, the modal features of powers are explained in terms of internal relations between powers themselves and the process-types in which powers are manifested.

3. Dispositions, Rules, and Finks. (Co-authored with Alexander Bird.) Philosophical Studies. Forthcoming.

   This paper discusses the prospects of a dispositional solution to the Kripke–Wittgenstein rule-following puzzle. Recent attempts to employ dispositional approaches to this puzzle have appealed to the ideas of finks and antidotes – interfering dispositions and conditions – to explain why the rule-following disposition is not always manifested.We argue that this approach fails: agents cannot be supposed to have straightforward dispositions to follow a rule which are in some fashion masked by other, contrary dispositions of the agent, because in all cases, at least some of the interfering dispositions are both relatively permanent and intrinsic to the agent. The presence of these intrinsic and relatively permanent states renders the ascription of a rule-following disposition to the agent false.

4. Unfinkable dispositions. Synthese 160 (2008): 297–308.

   This paper develops two ideas with respect to dispositional properties: (1) Adapting a suggestion of Sungho Choi, it appears the conceptual distinction between dispositional and categorical properties can be drawn in terms of susceptibility to finks and antidotes. Dispositional, but not categorical properties, are not susceptible to intrinsic finks, nor are they remediable by intrinsic antidotes. (2) If correct, this suggests the possibility that some dispositions – those which lack any causal basis – may be insusceptible to any fink or antidote. Since finks and antidotes are a major obstacle to a conditional analysis of dispositions, these dispositions that are unfinkable may be successfully analysed by the conditional analysis of dispositions. This result is of importance for those who think that the fundamental properties might be dispositions which lack any distinct causal basis, because it suggests that these properties, if they exist, can be analysed by simple conditionals and that they will not be subject to ceteris paribus laws.

5. The metaphysics of causal models: Where's the biff? (Co-authored with Charles Twardy, Kevin Korb, and Graham Oppy.) Erkenntnis 68 (2008): 149–68.

   This paper presents an attempt to integrate theories of causal processes – of the kind developed by Wesley Salmon and Phil Dowe – into a theory of causal models using Bayesian networks. We suggest that arcs in causal models must correspond to possible causal processes. Moreover, we suggest that when processes are rendered physically impossible by what occurs on distinct paths, the original model must be restricted by removing the relevant arc. These two techniques suffice to explain cases of late preëmption and other cases that have proved problematic for causal models.

6. Armstrong and the modal inversion of dispositions. The Philosophical Quarterly 55 (2005): 452–61.

   D. M. Armstrong has objected that the Dispositionalist theory of laws and properties is modally inverted, for it entails that properties are constituted by relations to non-actual possibilia. I contend that, if this objection succeeds against Dispositionalism, then Armstrong's nomic necessitation relation is also modally inverted. This shows that at least one of Armstrong's reasons for preferring a nomic necessitation theory is specious.

7. Lange on essentialism, counterfactuals, and explanation. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 83 (2005): 81–5.

   Marc Lange objects to scientific essentialists that they can give no better account of the counterfactual invariance of laws than Humeans. While conceding this point succeeds ad hominem against some essentialists, I show that it does not undermine essentialism in general. Moreover, Lange's own account of the relation between laws and counterfactuals is – with minor modification – compatible with essentialism.

8. Counterlegals and necessary laws. The Philosophical Quarterly 54 (2004): 402–19.

   Necessitarian accounts of the laws of nature have an apparent difficulty in accounting for counterlegal conditionals because, despite appearing to be substantive, on the necessitarian thesis they are vacuous. I argue that the necessitarian may explain the apparently substantive content of such conditionals by pointing out the presuppositions of counterlegal discourse. The typical presupposition is that a certain conceptual possibility has been realized; namely, that necessitarianism is false. (The idea of conceptual possibility is explicated in terms of recent work in two-dimensional modal semantics.) If this sort of presupposition is made explicit in counterlegal utterances, we obtain a sentence such as: 'If it turns out that the laws of nature are contingent, then if the laws had been otherwise, then such and such would have been the case.' Sentences of this type are non-vacuous, and very often true. I argue that this goes a long way towards resolving the difficulty for necessitarianism.

9. Dispositional essentialism and the possibility of a law-abiding miracle. The Philosophical Quarterly 51 (2001): 484–94.

   I argue that the possibility of spontaneous events is compatible with the central theses of Dispositional essentialism. These events constitute, in effect, "law-abiding miracles". Such miracles are useful because they allow Dispositional essentialists to avail themselves of Lewis-style possible-worlds semantics for counterfactuals.

10. Token causation by probabilistic active paths. (Co-authored with Charles Twardy, Kevin Korb, and Graham Oppy.) Undergoing revision – do not cite without permission.

    We present a probabilistic extension to active path analyses of token causation (Halpern & Pearl 2001, forthcoming; Hitchcock 2001). The extension uses the generalized notion of intervention presented in (Korb et al. 2004): we allow an intervention to set any probability distribution over the intervention variables, not just a single value. The resulting account can handle a wide range of examples. We do not claim the account is complete -- only that it fills an obvious gap in previous active-path approaches. It still succumbs to recent counterexamples by Hiddleston (2005), because it does not explicitly consider causal processes. We claim three benefits: a detailed comparison of three active-path approaches, a probabilistic extension for each, and an algorithmic formulation.

Moral Theory

1. Finking Frankfurt. (Co-authored with Daniel Cohen.) Philosophical Studies 135 (2007): 363–74. [published article]

   Michael Smith has resisted Frankfurt's claim that moral responsibility does not require the ability to have done otherwise. He does this by claiming that, in Frankfurt cases, the ability to do otherwise is indeed present, but is a disposition that has been "finked" or masked by other factors. We suggest that, while Smith's account appears to work for some classic Frankfurt cases, it does not work for all. In particular, Smith cannot explain cases, such as the Willing Addict, where the Frankfurt device – e.g. the addiction – is intrinsic to the agent.

2. Is the risk–liability thesis compatible with negligence law? (Co-authored with Trevor Pisciotta). Legal Theory 11 (2005): 387–404.

David McCarthy has recently suggested that our compensation and liability practices may be interpreted as reflecting a fundamental norm to hold people liable for imposing risk of harm on others. Independently, closely related ideas have been criticised by Stephen R. Perry and Arthur Ripstein as incompatible with central features of negligence law. We aim to show that these objections are unsuccessful against McCarthy’s Risk–liability theory, and that such an approach is a promising means both for understanding the moral basis of liability for negligence and for reasoning about possible reforms of the institution of negligence law.

3. Defence and preservation. In progress.

This paper offers a unified account of (i) the right to use violence in self-defence and (ii) the permissibility of harming others in cases of preservation, such as Trolley cases.

4. Rights, legal and moral: You say either, she says neither – let's call the whole thing off. Draft.

   Judith Thomson (1990) says it is "unhelpful" to distinguish between legal and moral rights in such a way as to imply that these are distinct species. I attempt to elucidate her reasons for this view.

Applied philosophy

1. Nozick, prohibition, and no-fault motor insurance. Journal of Applied Philosophy 20 (2003): 201–8.

   Is a Nozickian theory of rights compatible with a no-fault motor insurance scheme? I say, Yes. The argument turns on an explication of the basis on which a Nozickian justifies the prohibition of merely risky activities.