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58It’s much more important than that: against fictionalist accounts of fandomJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 49 (1): 83-98. 2022.Do sports fans really care about their team winning? According to several philosophers, the answer is no. Sports fans engage in fictional caring during the match, which involves a game of make-believe that the result is important. We will argue that this account does not provide a full account of the way in which fans relate to the teams they support. For many fans, the team they support forms a core part of their identity. The success or failure of their team impacts the community they are a pa…Read more
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56Why It's Ok to Be a Sports FanRoutledge. 2023.This book offers readers a pitch side seat to the ethics of fandom. Its accessible six chapters are aimed both at true sports fans whose conscience may be occasionally piqued by their pastime, and at those who are more certain of the moral hazards involved in following a team or sport. Why It's OK to Be a Sports Fan wrestles with a range of arguments against fandom and counters with its own arguments on why being a fan is very often a good thing. It looks at the ethical issues fans face, from th…Read more
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55The Limits of Moral Obligation: Moral Demandingness and Ought Implies Can, edited by M. v. Ackeren and M. Kühler (review)Journal of Moral Philosophy 14 (6): 761-764. 2017.
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55Celebrity Politics and Democratic ElitismTopoi 41 (1): 33-43. 2021.Is there good reason to worry about celebrity involvement in democratic politics? The rise of celebrity politicians such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky has led political theorists and commentators to worry that the role of expertise in democratic politics has been undermined. According to one recent critique, celebrities possess a significant degree of epistemic power that is unconnected to appropriate expertise. This presents a problem both for deliberative and epistemic theories of demo…Read more
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54Effective Vote Markets and the Tyranny of WealthRes Publica 25 (1): 39-54. 2019.What limits should there be on the areas of life that are governed by market forces? For many years, no one seriously defended the buying and selling votes for political elections. In recent years, however, this situation has changed, with a number of authors defending the permissibility of vote markets. One popular objection to such markets is that they would lead to a tyranny of wealth, where the poor are politically dominated by the rich. In a recent paper, Taylor :313–328, 2017. doi: 10.1007…Read more
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54Are We Obliged to Enhance for Moral Perfection?Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 43 (5): 490-505. 2018.Suppose, we could take a pill that would turn us into morally better people. Would we have a duty to take such a pill? In recent years, a number of philosophers have discussed this issue. Most prominently, Ingmar Persson and Julian Savulescu have argued that we would have a duty to take such a pill. In this article, I wish to investigate the possible limits of a duty to take moral enhancement drugs through investigating the related question of whether it would be desirable to create a world popu…Read more
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53Zagzebski, Linda Trinkaus. Exemplarist Moral Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Pp. 288. $69.00 (review)Ethics 128 (3): 682-686. 2018.
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47Sacrifice and Moral Philosophy (edited book)Routledge. 2020.The aim of this book is to foster a more explicit and direct discussion of the concept of sacrifice and its importance in moral philosophy. Acts of self-sacrifice have a special place in our moral lives. We admire and celebrate those who give up their lives so that others may live. Despite this important role that sacrifice plays in our moral thinking, moral philosophers have had surprisingly little to say about the nature of sacrifice. This lack of attention to the nature of sacrifice is partic…Read more
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42De Dicto Moral Desires and the Moral Sentiments: Adam Smith on the Role of De Dicto Moral Desires in the Virtuous AgentHistory of Philosophy Quarterly 33 (4): 327-346. 2016.What role should a motivation to do the right thing, read de dicto, play in the life of a virtuous agent? According to a prominent argument from Michael Smith, those who are only motivated by such a desire are moral fetishists. Since Smith’s argument, a number of philosophers have examined what role this desire would play in the life of the morally virtuous agent. My primary aim in this paper is an historical one. I will show that much of this discussion can be found in Adam Smith’s The Theory o…Read more
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41Online affective manipulationIn Michael Klenk & Fleur Jongepier (eds.), The Philosophy of Online Manipulation, Routledge. pp. 311-326. 2022.The aim of this chapter is broadly exploratory: we want to better understand online affective manipulation and what, if anything, is morally problematic about it. To do so, we begin by pulling apart various forms of online affective manipulation. We then proceed to discuss why online affective manipulation is properly categorized as manipulative, as well as what is wrong with (online) manipulation more generally. Building on this, we next argue that, at its most extreme, online affective manipul…Read more
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38Do We Need to Make Room for Quasi-Supererogation?Journal of Value Inquiry 50 (2): 341-351. 2016.
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37Exemplars and expertise: what we cannot learn from saints and heroesInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.According to a popular line of thought, moral exemplars have a key role to play in moral development and moral education and by paying attention to moral exemplars we can learn about what morality requires of us. However, when we pay attention to what many moral exemplars say about their actions, it seems that our moral obligations are much more demanding than we typically think they are. Some philosophers have argued that this exemplar testimony gives us reason to accept a radically demanding v…Read more
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36Playing with Art in Suits’ UtopiaSport, Ethics and Philosophy 13 (3-4): 456-470. 2019.ABSTRACTAccording to Bernard Suits, people in Utopia would spend their time playing games and would not spend any time creating or engaging with artworks. Here, we argue against this claim. We do s...
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36Being a Celebrity: Alienation, Integrity, and the UncannyJournal of the American Philosophical Association 9 (4): 597-615. 2023.A central feature of being a celebrity is experiencing a divide between one's public image and private life. By appealing to the phenomenology of Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, we analyze this experience as paradoxically involving both a disconnection and alienation from one's public persona and a sense of close connection with it. This ‘uncanny’ experience presents a psychological conflict for celebrities: they may have a public persona they feel alienated from and that is at the same time closely c…Read more
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31Using Stars for Moral Navigation: An Ethical Exploration into CelebrityJournal of Applied Philosophy 40 (2): 340-357. 2023.What role do celebrities play in our moral lives? Philosophers have explored the potential for celebrities to function as moral exemplars and role models. We argue that there are more ways in which celebrities play a role in helping us navigate our moral lives. First, gossiping about celebrities helps us negotiate our moral norms and identify competing styles of life. Second, fandom for celebrities serves as the basis for the development of distinct moral communities and identities. Third, celeb…Read more
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30Emotions in Sport and Games (edited book)Routledge. 2020.Emotions play an important role in both sport and games, from the pride and joy of victory, the misery and shame of defeat, and the anger and anxiety felt along the way. This volume brings together experts in the philosophy of sport and games and experts in the philosophy of emotion to investigate this important area of research. The book discusses the role of the emotions for both participants and spectators of sports and games, including detailed discussions of suffering, shame, anger, anxiety…Read more
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30Rehabilitating Self-Sacrifice: Care Ethics and the Politics of ResistanceInternational Journal of Philosophical Studies 26 (3): 456-477. 2018.How should feminists view acts of self-sacrifice performed by women? According to a long-standing critique of care ethics such acts ought to be viewed with scepticism. Care ethics, it is claimed, celebrates acts of self-sacrifice on the part of carers and in doing so encourages women to choose caring for others over their own self-development. In doing so, care ethics frustrates attempts to liberate women from the oppression of patriarchy. Care ethicists have responded to this critique by noting…Read more
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27The Cautionary Account of SupererogationPhilosophical Quarterly. forthcoming.The problem of supererogation has attracted significant attention from contemporary moral philosophers. In this paper, we show that this problem was outlined in different terms in the work of the 11th century Persian philosopher Abū Alī Miskawayh. As well as identifying this problem, Miskawayh also developed a unique solution cashed out in terms of virtue ethics that has not yet been considered in the contemporary literature. We will argue that this solution, which is in its general form indepen…Read more
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25Review: Steve Bein Compassion and Moral Guidance . 2013, ISBN 978-0-8248-3641-2, 222 pages, 45 Dollars (review)Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (3): 795-796. 2016.
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24This chapter critically analyses the ethical and political dimensions of supposedly subtle and non-coercive interventions that aim to ‘prevent crime’ through environmental designs making certain public spaces less attractive for specific groups. Examples include benches designed to discourage sleeping (targeted at homeless people), high-pitched noises or classical music played to deter lingering (targeted at youngsters), and specific lighting to prevent aggression (targeted at nightlife). While …Read more
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23Hard Feelings: The Moral Psychology of Contempt (review)Philosophical Quarterly 68 (271): 395-397. 2018.Hard Feelings: The Moral Psychology of Contempt. By.
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22Integrity and the Virtues of Reason: Leading a Convincing Life. By Greg Scherkoske. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2013, 270pp., £55. ISBN: 9781107000674 (review)Philosophy 89 (3): 495-499. 2014.
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19The Moral Psychology of Admiration (edited book)Rowman & Littlefield International. 2019.This volume is an interdisciplinary exploration of admiration, examining the nature of this emotion, how it relates to other emotions, and what role it plays in our moral lives.
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16Foul-weather fandomJournal of the Philosophy of Sport 50 (3): 383-401. 2023.A familiar debate in the philosophy of sport concerns the question of whether fans should seek to be partisans (those who support particular teams or individuals) or whether they should instead adopt the impartial attitude of the purist. More recently, Kyle Fruh et al. have argued in defense of fair-weather fandom, which they understand as a form of fandom that involves adopting temporary allegiances in response to non-sporting considerations. This paper will add a new form of fandom to this dis…Read more
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10Many accept that there are some acts that are ‘supererogatory’ or ‘beyond the call of duty’. Risking one’s life to save others or dedicating one’s life to helping the needy are often thought to be examples of such acts. Accepting the possibility of acts of this sort raises interesting problems for moral philosophy, as many moral theories appear to leave no room for the supererogatory. While these problems are increasingly recognized in moral philosophy, there remain a number of debates that have…Read more
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