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37Equal political libertiesPacific Philosophical Quarterly 93 (2): 158-174. 2012.Formal guarantees of political equality are compatible with inequalities in the value of political liberties, as individuals may convert their socioeconomic advantages into political advantages. Perhaps the predominant strategy for limiting substantive political inequalities recommends limiting inequalities in the means of acquiring political power for private gain – most notably, economic means. I express a worry that measures instituted to restrict economic inequalities may do more to frustrat…Read more
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210Liberalism or Immigration Restrictions, But Not BothJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 10 (2): 1-22. 2016.This paper argues for a dilemma: you can accept liberalism or immigration restrictions, but not both. More specifically, the standard arguments for restricting freedom of movement apply equally to textbook liberal freedoms, such as freedom of speech, religion, occupation and reproductive choice. We begin with a sketch of liberalism’s core principles and an argument for why freedom of movement is plausibly on a par with other liberal freedoms. Next we argue that, if a state’s right to self-determ…Read more
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42Poverty, partiality, and the purchase of expensive educationPolitics, Philosophy and Economics 16 (1): 25-46. 2017.Prioritarianism doesn’t value equality as such – any reason to equalize is due to the benefits for the worse off. But some argue that prioritarianism and egalitarianism coincide in their implications for the distribution of education: Equalizing educational opportunities improves the socioeconomic opportunities of the worse off. More specifically, a system that prohibits parents from making differential private educational expenditures would result in greater gains to the worse off than a system…Read more
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71Analogical Arguments for EgalitarianismRatio 27 (2): 222-237. 2013.Egalitarians sometimes analogize socioeconomic opportunities to starting gates, playing fields, and the results of a lottery. A fair game is one in which all have an equal opportunity to succeed; egalitarians propose that the same is true of a fair society. A second type of argument for egalitarianism appeals to intuitions about the distribution of found resources. A just division of manna discovered on a strange planet seems to be an equal one. Both types of argument share a crucial feature: th…Read more
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186Vote MarketsAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (4): 759-774. 2014.This paper argues for the legalization of vote markets. I contend that the state should not prohibit the sale of votes under certain institutional conditions. Jason Brennan has recently argued for the moral permissibility of vote selling; yet, thus far, no philosopher has argued for the legal permissibility of vote selling. I begin by giving four prima facie reasons in favour of legalizing vote markets. First, vote markets benefit both buyers and sellers. Second, citizens already enjoy significa…Read more
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120Goodness and Moral Twin EarthErkenntnis 79 (2): 445-460. 2014.Terry Horgan and Mark Timmons’s “Moral Twin Earth” thought experiment allegedly undercuts virtually any form of naturalist moral realism. I argue that a neo-Aristotelian conception of moral properties defeats Moral Twin Earth. Developing themes in the work of Peter Geach, Philippa Foot, and Rosalind Hursthouse, I sketch an Aristotelian moral semantics that is unique in construing terms like ‘right’ and ‘good’ exclusively as attributive adjectives that denote relational properties. On this view, …Read more
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150Self-ownership and disgust: why compulsory body part redistribution gets under our skinPhilosophical Studies 172 (12): 3167-3190. 2015.The self-ownership thesis asserts, roughly, that agents own their minds and bodies in the same way that they can own extra-personal property. One common strategy for defending the self-ownership thesis is to show that it accords with our intuitions about the wrongness of various acts involving the expropriation of body parts. We challenge this line of defense. We argue that disgust explains our resistance to these sorts of cases and present results from an original psychological experiment in su…Read more
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34Cosmopolitanism Within Borders: On Behalf of Charter CitiesJournal of Applied Philosophy 30 (1): 40-52. 2013.Economist Paul Romer proposes the establishment of charter cities. Charter cities would resemble special economic zones; that is, small regions that experiment with economic rules that differ from those governing their larger ‘host’ countries. Yet unlike a special economic zone, a charter city would also experiment with its own legal and political rules. The rules, in turn, can be enforced by a third-party coalition of representatives of foreign countries that enforce these rules at home. Host c…Read more
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74Why Be Immoral?Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 13 (2): 191-205. 2010.Developing themes in the work of Thomas Hill, I argue that servility is an underappreciated but pervasive reason for moral transgression. Recognizing servility as a basic cause of immorality obliges us to reconsider questions about the rationality of morality. Traditional answers to the problem of the immoralist, which tend to be stated in terms of enlightened self-interest, fail to properly engage the problems posed by 'servile immorality.' In response to these problems, I develop a Humean vers…Read more
Williamsburg, Virginia, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Applied Ethics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |
Social and Political Philosophy |