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| Publsihed and Forthcoming Papers |
| Berkeley's Immaterialist Account of Action, Journal of the History of Philosophy, 415-429, July 2006 |
| Patrick Fleming's Homepage email: flemingpatr AT hotmail.com James Madison University Philosophy and Religion, MSC 7504 Harrisonburg, VA 22807 |
| Gibbard's Transcendental Arguments In Thinking How to Live Allan Gibbard claims that agents are committed to the claim that normative properties are constituted by factual properties. He argues for this claim by a type of transcendental argument. This paper critically evaluates Gibbard's methodology and attempts to locate his work on the contemporary metaethical map. (updated 5/29/06) |
| Good Advice There are two important philosophical questions about advice. When is it rational to accept advice and what constitutes good advice? This paper attempts to answer the second question, which should give us a better grip on the second. A piece of advice is good advice if and only if it leads an advisee to do what is in his or her self-interest. |
| Caring, Character and Rational Agency Does rationality speak to how we ought to be related to our ends? This paper argues that we are rationally required to care about our ends. Because of this we must develop a character, a particular perspective on matters of value. |
| Paradigmatic Action Harry Frankfurt and J. David Velleman both offer accounts of paradigmatic action. To greatly oversimplify, Frankfurt roots our agency in our capacity to care, while Velleman places it in our cognitive capacity to make sense of ourselves. This paper argues that both views have an important piece of the truth. The paper advances a pluralistic account of paradigmatic agency. (updated 7/30/07) |
| Works in Progress. Comments Welcome |
| On a Purported Principle of Practical Reason, forthcoming in the Journal of Philosophical Research |
| Intuitions as Invitations Many philosophers express intuitions by saying "we" believe something. Lately, such claims have come under empirical attack by critics asking who this "we" refers to. I outline a different way to understand such claims. |
| Welcome! I am a Visiting Assistant Professor at James Madison University. This page is about my research. Students who are interested in one of my courses should feel free to contact me directly. I am primarily interested in metaethics and practical reason. In particular, I am interested in developing a plausible Humean constructivist position in this area. The two problems that I am most worried about is how an agent can be said to be truly active if one accepts the Humean theory of motivation and how can a Humean have a fairly robust account of objectivity or error in value judgments. My philosphical interests are fairly broad though, so I am happy to talk about almost any issue. The papers below give you some indication of what else I find interesting. And since I am looking for a job, here is a CV. |