Luke Robinson

I work at the intersection of metaethics and normative ethics. My current research focuses on questions in moral metaphysics and moral epistemology that bear on the methodology of and substantive disputes within normative ethical theory–e.g., questions about the nature of moral principles, of obligating reasons (right- and wrong-making circumstances or properties), and of conflicts between the obligations they ground. The ultimate aim of this research is to advance normative ethical theory both by improving our understanding of the metaphysics of the domain it seeks to understand and by identifying methodologies (e.g., forms of inference and argument) appropriate to the study of that domain.

Representative Publications

Moral Principles Are Not Moral Laws. Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy 2 (November 2008):1-22.
Moral Holism, Moral Generalism, and Moral Dispositionalism. Mind 82 (April 2006): 331-60.

Work in Progress

Moral Principles as Moral Dispositions
Right-Making and Wrong-Making Reasons
Obligating Reasons and Other Morally Relevant Factors
Conflicts of Obligation and the Metaphysics of Morality

Teaching

Ethical Theory
Philosophy of Law
Contemporary Moral Problems