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Most things of value in life depend on luck. But what is it, exactly, to be lucky? I think an agent is lucky when he wants something (i.e. he has a goal) and then passes through a sort of “trial” in which getting what he wants is statistically unlikely, or at least not guaranteed. If…

It’s remarkable how individualism has come to be identified with right-wing politics. By “individualism” I mean: love of individuality; high regard for the freedom and welfare of individuals; respect for the interests of sentient beings rather than for non-sentient political abstractions; and the expectation that we can understand society by looking at how its constituent…

Preference utilitarianism differs from traditional utilitarianism in that it doesn’t enjoin us to maximize any sort of commodity such as pleasure or happiness. The rather murky concept of “utility” has no place in preference utilitarianism. Instead, as Peter Singer lucidly put it, preference utilitarianism is the “minimum moral position”. To act morally, an agent should…