My Main Ideas
This site brings together my thinking across six linked subjects: Practical Reason, Utilitarianism, Effective Altruism, Consciousness, Naturalism, and The Big Picture.
Practical Reason
My starting point is practical reason: the use of reason to work out what to do. I think moral thinking should be understood as part of this wider activity, rather than as a separate or mysterious domain. Practical and moral judgements are human judgements, but they are not arbitrary: they are made in relation to ends and facts about the world.
Utilitarianism
From this starting point, I develop a value-first form of utilitarianism. I see value as grounded in conscious experience: in the positive and negative qualities of experience, which should be aggregated across time and across lives. For me, utilitarianism is not primarily a simple decision procedure, but a central framework for understanding what matters.
Effective Altruism
Effective altruism is a practical extension of these ideas. If welfare matters, and if some actions do far more good than others, then we should use reason and evidence to work out global priorities and how to help most effectively.
Consciousness
Consciousness plays a central role in my picture because it is where experience and value enter the world. Many of our instinctive ways of thinking about consciousness are wrong. I think it is best understood naturalistically as an evolved, limited subsystem of the brain.
Naturalism
My outlook is naturalistic. I assume that reality contains nothing supernatural, and that our best guides to understanding it are science and careful reasoning. Naturalism matters because it changes the whole picture: it removes supernatural explanations, but also requires us to rethink inherited ideas about mind, agency, value and human nature.
The Big Picture
The wider project is to bring these strands, together with other areas of knowledge, into a coherent worldview. I have always been drawn to the large questions: what the world is like, what matters, what we are, and how we should live. The project is interdisciplinary, drawing on philosophy, science, psychology, economics, history and other disciplines where they contribute to understanding the big picture.
Brief Biography
My undergraduate degree was in Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Keble College, Oxford. After that I enjoyed a career as a Chartered Accountant, which included working for the property company Hammerson.
But I always wanted to return to philosophy, and retired early to take the Philosophy MA at Birkbeck College, London. I now study independently.
I live in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England with my wife Helen, and we have three adult children. My other interests include travel, running and piano.
My Studies
I spend much of my time on my studies. This includes reading books, listening to podcasts, online research, taking notes and writing. In the last year, AI has become a central tool.
Contact Me
Please contact me by email at [email protected] if you have any questions or comments or would like to collaborate.