in Tonry, M. (ed.) Of One-eyed and Toothless Miscreants: Making the Punishment Fit the Crime? Oxford: Oxford University Press. Abstract Conflicts between relative and absolute proportionality are an imp

Research seminar with Avia Pasternak, Associate Professor in Political Theory at University College London. REGISTER HERE TO GET A MEETING LINK AbstractViolent protestors against state injustice typical

Criminal Law & Philosophy Abstract The aim of the paper is to investigate how retributivists should respond to the apparent tension between moral desert and proportionality in punishment. I argue th

In the summer of 2014, Israel launched a military action against Gaza called "Operation Protective Edge", as a response to Hamas rocket attacks. The conflict brought to the fore important debates in b

The most recent conflict in Gaza – Operation Protective Edge – brought to the fore crucially important debates in both international law and the ethics of war. In November this year, a group of intern

Philosophical Studies Abstract In her ground-breaking and highly influential book Transformative Experience, L.A. Paul makes two claims: (1) one cannot evaluate and compare certain experiential outcomes  evaluate and compare certain intuitively horrible outcomes (e.g. being eaten alive by sharks) as bad and worse than certain other outcomes even if one cannot grasp what these intuitively horrible outcomes are like. We argue that the conjunction of these two claims leads to an implausible discontinuity in the evaluability of outcomes. One implication of positing such a discontinuity is that evaluative comparisons of outcomes will not be proportionally sensitive to variation in the underlying features of these outcomes. This puts pressure on Paul to abandon either (1) or (2). But (1) is central to her view and (2) is very hard to deny. We call this the Shark Problem.

Garrett Cullity, Hughes Professor of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Faculty of Arts, The University of Adelaide, South Australia.Abstract When well-off individuals do not offset their own personal g

 A demographer calculates how the average life expectancy can be affected In Sweden, we now experience the first pandemic that occurs in a society with modern information technology, and it is also the

Dr Malcolm Fairbrother, University of Bristol ABSTRACTMost people say they are concerned about the serious environmental problems confronting the world today and threatening the well-being of future ge

Doctoral thesis in practical philosophy, Stockholm: Department of Philosophy, Stockholm University. Abstract In this study I analyse the performance of a democratic decision-making rule: the weighted ma