Overview
I work on a variety of issues in moral and political philosophy. My dissertation work concerned rights, blame, and respect. I have published on promising and am interested in normative powers more broadly. I have work in progress on blameworthiness, the value of persons, and relational morality.
Publications
“Wrongdoer-Centered Reasons for Blame,” Ethics (forth) (pre-pub draft)
I argue that we have reasons to blame wrongdoers for their own sake because blame is how we register the importance of their regard for others.
“Enabling Rights,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy (forth) (pre-pub draft)
I argue that our duties give rise to rights that function to protect our ability to do these duties, that we need not appeal to anything other than our duties to explain these rights, and that our duties are important reflections of our moral status or importance.
“Conventionalism and Contingency in Promissory Powers,” Philosophical Studies (2023) (PhilPapers) (pre-pub draft) (free, view-only PDF)
I argue that conventionalists about promising can and should accommodate a claim that is usually thought to make trouble for their view: the power of promise is morally necessary.
“Promises, Intentions, and Reasons for Action,” Ethics (2021) (PhilPapers) (pre-pub draft)
I consider the view that to accept a promise is to intend the performance of the promised action and argue that this view makes it difficult to explain an essential property of promises: they provide reasons for performance.
Work in progress and under review
“Relational Normativity & the Gratitude Relation” (conference-length draft)
I argue that that directed duties are not the only kind of directed normative considerations.
“Quality of Will: Expression or Possession?” (conference-length draft)
I suggest that actions can express objectionable attitudes and evaluations that an agent does not actually possess, and that this might explain why guilt and resentment can be fitting in unusual cases—such as those involving apparent moral dilemmas—even in the absence of ill will.
“Participant Respect” (draft available on request)
I sketch a previously ignored form of moral respect, “participant respect,” which requires us to recognize others as moral participants by publicly affirming the importance of their duties to others.
A paper on valuing persons
I argue some actions and attitudes (e.g., such as love, grief, and demands for apology) constitute valuing two people at once, each for their own sake, and do so in a way that suggests that the value of particular persons is in a deep sense interdependent on the value of others particular persons.
“Dignity’s Demands”
I argue that contemporary accounts of dignity—which associate it with entitlements—miss something important that traditional conceptions captured well: that dignity can manifest in the possession of obligations.
Dissertation
Significant Others. Committee: Michael McKenna (chair), Tom Christiano, Mark Timmons, Steve Wall.
Philosophers and lay people alike tend to overlook things by dwelling on the downsides of having moral obligations, and ignoring the fact that these obligations reflect the importance of their possessor.
Chapter 1. In the theory of rights, we have overlooked the significance of our enabling rights, which function to protect our ability to do our duty.
Chapter 2. In the ethics of blame, we have overlooked the fact that blaming someone is an important vehicle for recognizing their importance as a person whose regard for others matters in its own right.
Chapter 3. And in our theory of respect, we have overlooked the specific form of respect associated with taking others’ obligations seriously.
Attending to these oversights offers us a more complete picture of the contours of our own importance, provides us a better sense of what we owe others who possess obligations, and promises to help reconcile us to the obligations that structure our lives.