In this article, I aim to clarify how Actual Desire Satisfactionism should accommodate the ways in which desire and time are connected. In particular, I argue that Weak Concurrentism represents the most promising way for the Desire Satisfactionist to capture the temporal nature of desire. I consider the Desire Satisfactionist's other main options, but argue that none succeeds. This leaves Weak Concurrentism looking attractive. However, Weak Concurrentism might also be thought to have some implausible consequences of its own. Nonetheless, I argue that, on closer inspection, these consequences are not implausible at all – at least by the lights of the Desire Satisfactionist. I do not offer a full-blown defence of Weak Concurrentism, but rather aim to defend only a conditional conclusion: in so far as one is committed to Actual Desire Satisfactionism, Weak Concurrentism represents the best way to tackle the problems raised by the temporal nature of desires.

In this article, I develop a conception of multiculturalism that is compatible with Mill's liberal framework. I argue, drawing from Mill's conception of the nation-state, that he would expect cultural minorities to assimilate fully into the political sphere of the dominant culture, but to assimilate only minimally, if at all, into the cultural sphere. I also argue that while Mill cannot permit cultural accommodations in the form of self-government rights, he would allow for certain accommodation rights (construed as individual rights) which assist cultural minorities in preserving their cultural particularity. While this is indeed a modest multiculturalism, it helps to demonstrate that Mill was not as hostile towards custom or minority groups as certain passages may appear to suggest.

In a recent issue of Utilitas Gerald Lang provided an appealing new solution to the Wrong Kind of Reason problem for the buck-passing account of value. In subsequent issues Jonas Olson and John Brunero have provided objections to Lang's solution. I argue that Brunero's objection is not a problem for Lang's solution, and that a revised version of Lang's solution avoids Olson's objections. I conclude that we can solve the Wrong Kind of Reason problem, and that the wrong kind of reasons for pro-attitudes are reasons that would not still be reasons for pro-attitudes if it were not for the additional consequences of having those pro-attitudes.

This article proposes a way of understanding Kantianism, act-utilitarianism and some other important ethical theories according to which they are all versions of the same kind of theory, sharing a common structure. I argue that this is a profitable way to understand the theories discussed. It is charitable to the theories concerned; it emphasizes the common ground between them; it gives us insights into the differences between them; and it provides a method for generating new ethical theories worth studying. The article briefly discusses the relationship between these ideas and some other recent proposals that emphasize the common ground between Kantianism and versions of consequentialism.

Political liberals very often appeal to a so-called division of moral labour that separates the regulation of institutions from that of personal conduct. Probably the most famous statement of this idea is found in these remarks from John Rawls:

Stephen Kearns and Daniel Star have recently proposed the following theory of reasons:

I must first thank Daniel Halliday for his incisive but fair review essay of my book. Regretfully, I can only consider, and only in outline at that, some of his well-taken questions.

In Ideal Code, Real World, Brad Hooker proposes an account of the relation between his rule-consequentialism and virtue according to which the virtues (1) have intrinsic value and (2) are identical with the dispositions that are ‘essential parts of accepting the rules’ of the ideal code. While it is not clear whether Hooker actually intends to endorse this account or only intends to moot it for discussion, I argue that for him to adopt it would be a mistake. Not only would this mean that his moral theory was no longer properly a consequentialist view at all, but it would commit him to inconsistent views about how normative theories – in particular theories of morality in the deontic sense and theories of virtue – are justified.

Recent attempts to defend Mill's account of higher and lower pleasures have overlooked a critical flaw in Mill's argument. Mill considers the question of pleasure and preference as an empirical one, but the evidence he appeals to is inconclusive. Yet, this distinction plays an essential role in Mill's utilitarianism because Mill uses this evidence to support his argument that most people actually prefer pleasures resulting from higher faculties over pleasures resulting from lower faculties. If this proves to be insufficient, then Mill's claim that these pleasures are clearly of a higher quality than others is left unsubstantiated. This article highlights the problematic nature of Mill's evidence, thereby exposing a significant problem for his, and for any utilitarian system which assumes Mill's distinction without providing additional argumentation for it.

In ‘The Paradox of Moral Complaint’ I took up the question whether a person who has wronged others in certain ways may morally complain if other people then harm him illegitimately in similar ways. I argued that there are strong grounds for saying both Yes and No here, and therefore that our considered moral views seem to be paradoxical. In her reply, Talia Shaham disagrees with the No part of my position. She presents two appealing philosophical arguments, and concludes that there is no ‘Paradox of Moral Complaint’, seeking in particular to defend the unconditional moral ‘right’ of wronged wrongdoers to complain, as against my claims. I attempt to defend my position against her arguments.