Academic Papers 2013

This past year has been a busy one. As is common on most blogs, I thought that as I approached the New Year it might be time to do a bit of a retrospective. So anyway, here is a list of the academic articles I have had published or accepted for publication in the past year. In each case, I provide a short synopsis and links to the official versions, as well as preprints on academic.edu and philpapers.

• On the Need for Epistemic Enhancement: Democratic Legitimacy and the Enhancement Project (2013) 5(1) Law Innovation and Technology 85 - 112 - This paper defends the use of enhancement technologies for participants in the legal trial using ideas from social epistemology and democratic legitimacy. (Official; Academia; Philpapers)

• Kramer's Purgative Rationale for Capital Punishment: A Critique (2013) Criminal Law and Philosophy DOI 10.1007/s11572-013-9251-8 - This paper critiques Matthew Kramer's attempt to defend the death penalty using something he calls the purgative rationale. I argue that the purgative rationale fails to satisfy the test that Kramer himself sets for any successful defence of the death penalty. (Official; Academia; Philpapers)

• Skeptical Theism and Divine Permission: A Reply to Anderson (2013) International Journal for the Philosophy of Religion DOI: 10.1007/s11153-013-9429-y - This paper takes issue with David Anderson's attempt to defend skeptical theism from the moral skepticism challenge. I also take the opportunity to clarify some of the key concepts and ideas in this debate. (Official; Academia; Philpapers)

• Necessary Moral Truths and Theistic Metaethics (2013) SOPHIA DOI 10.1007/s11841-013-0390-0 - This paper argues that the fact -- if it is a fact -- that some moral truths are necessary undermines the core commitment of theistic metaethics (viz. every moral fact should be explained by God). I defend this argument from attacks by William Lane Craig and Mark Murphy. (Official; Academia; Philpapers)

• The Vice of In-Principlism and the Harmfulness of Love (2013) 13(11) American Journal of Bioethics 19-21 - This was a short commentary on Earp et al's target article about the ethics of anti-love biotechnology. I argued that their proposed framework for determining the permissible use of such technologies commits the vice of in-principlism and misstates the role of harm. (Official; Academia; Philpapers)

• Responsible Innovation in Social Epistemic Systems: The P300 Memory Detection Test and the Legal Trial in Van den Hoven et al (Eds) Responsible Innovation Volume II: Concepts, Approaches, Applications (Dordrecht: Springer, forthcoming - 2014) - This paper proposes a novel framework for determining whether or not something like the P300 memory detection test should be used in legal trials. (Academia; Philpapers)

• Hyperagency and the Good Life - Does Extreme Enhancement Threaten Meaning? (2013) Neuroethics DOI: 10.1007/s12152-013-9200-1 - This paper looks at hyperagency objections to the use of enhancement technologies and argues that they are unpersuasive. It also argues that far from undermining the conditions necessary for a good and meaningful life, enhancement technologies may actually allow us to live more fulfilling and more meaningful lives. (Official; Academia; Philpapers)