P. J. Hulme : Philosophy

I am an independent scholar in Moral and Political Philosophy. I have a PhD from Birkbeck, University of London.

If you are interested in my work or share my interests, please email me. I’d be very happy to hear from you!

1. JOHN RAWLS and PROPERTY-OWNING DEMOCRACY

The idea that wealth should be distributed widely so that everyone can own a share of productive capital goes back at least to Rousseau and was famously advocated by John Rawls. In existing capitalist societies capital is owned by a lucky few; in socialist societies capital is owned by the state; but in a Property-Owning democracy everyone would have their share of productive capital. Rawls argued that in such a society the rights and interests of the least-advantaged would be better protected and promoted.

My research explores the role that profit-seeking would play in Property-Owning Democracy. If everyone is to be given a share of capital, then they need to understand how to invest that capital for a profit. Such profit-seeking, and the ability of sellers to freely set prices, also seems essential for us as consumers in accessing the marketplace to get the products we need to survive. However, many followers of Rawls are sceptical of profit-seeking. My research explores how the importance of profit-seeking, and the essential roles of investor and consumer, can be recognised within a Rawlsian conception of Property-Owning Democracy.

For titles of papers I've presented on this topic visit: Activities

2. MetaEthics, Constructivism and Creativity

Do moral values exist independently of us thinking about them? Over the last 100 years, this central question of metaethics has dominated moral theory in the English speaking philosophical tradition. Many philosophers have assumed that in order to avoid moral scepticism we need to prove that moral values are real in the sense of having a mind-independent existence. However, in recent years constructivism has been promoted as an alternative way of avoiding scepticism. According to constructivism, moral truth is a function of human agency, not mind-independent moral values. For example, a constructivist might hold that the truth of the statement “Murder is wrong” is determined by what rational agents would agree to under some specified conditions of choice. Moral values are thus constructed through human engagement in the world as moral agents.

My research explores the role that the natural creativity of human agency plays in the construction of moral values. The dominant, Kantian, form of constructivism has implied that the episodes of agency that construct moral values are deterministic processes in which the same inputs will result in the same output on different occasions. However, research into human creativity suggests that processes which involve both deterministic and arbitrary elements are necessary for solving many human problems. My research explores the ways in which these creative episodes of agency might create moral values and what this might mean for questions of objectivity and the hope of convergence on shared conceptions of moral truth.

For more on this topic read my PhD abstract