•  97
    Weighing Reasons (edited book)
    Oxford University Press USA. 2016.
    Normative reasons have become a popular theoretical tool in recent decades. One helpful feature of normative reasons is their weight. The fourteen new essays in this book theorize about many different aspects of weight. Topics range from foundational issues to applications of weight in debates across philosophy
  •  430
    It is a truism that we ought to be rational. Despite this, it has become popular to think that it is not the case that we ought to be rational. In this paper I argue for a view about rationality—the view that what one is rationally required to do is determined by the normative reasons one possesses—by showing that it can vindicate that one ought to be rational. I do this by showing that it is independently very plausible that what one ought to do is determined by the normative reasons one posses…Read more
  •  1121
    From Independence to Conciliationism: An Obituary
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy (2): 1-13. 2013.
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Volume 92, Issue 2, Page 365-377, June 2014
  •  55
    Reasons for Belief
    Philosophical Quarterly 64 (257): 664-667. 2014.
  •  291
    Dancy on Acting for the Right Reason
    Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (3): 1-7. 2007.
    It is a truism that agents can do the right action for the right reason. To put the point in terms more familiar to ethicists, it is a truism that one’s motivating reason can be one’s normative reason. In this short note, I will argue that Jonathan Dancy’s preferred view about how this is possible faces a dilemma. Dancy has the choice between accounting for two plausible constraints while at the same time holding an outlandish philosophy of mind by his own lights or giving up his view's central …Read more
  •  114
    The Explanatory Problem for Cognitivism about Practical Reason
    In Conor McHugh Jonathan Way & Daniel Whiting (eds.), Normativity: Epistemic and Practical, . forthcoming.
    Cognitivists about practical reason hold that we can explain why certain wide-scope requirements of practical rationality are true by appealing to certain epistemic requirements. Extant discussions of cognitivism focus solely on two claims. The first is the claim that intentions involve beliefs. The second is that whenever your intentions are incoherent in certain ways, you will be epistemically irrational. Even if the cognitivist successfully defends these claims, she still needs to show that t…Read more
  •  86
    The Importance of Being Rational
    Oxford University Press. 2018.
    Errol Lord offers a new account of the nature of rationality: what it is for one to be rational is to correctly respond to the normative reasons one possesses. Lord defends novel views about what it is to possess reasons and what it is to correctly respond to reasons, and dispels doubts about whether we ought to be rational.
  •  352
    Justifying Partiality
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19 (3): 569-590. 2016.
    It’s an undeniable fact about our moral lives that we are partial towards certain people and projects. Despite this, it has traditionally been very hard to justify partiality. In this paper I defend a novel partialist theory. The context of the paper is the debate between three different views of how partiality is justified. According to the first view, partiality is justified by facts about our ground projects. According to the second view, partiality is justified by facts about our relationshi…Read more
  •  206
    In this paper I'm interested in the prospects for the Right Reasons theory of creditworthiness. The Right Reasons theory says that what it is for an agent to be creditworthy for X-ing is for that agent to X for the right reasons. The paper has a negative goal and a positive goal. The negative goal is to show that a class of Right Reasons theories are doomed. These theories all have a Conceptualization Condition on acting for the right reasons. Conceptualization Conditions demand that agents who …Read more
  •  37
    From Independence to Conciliationism: An Obituary
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 92 (2): 365-377. 2014.
    Conciliationists about peer disagreement hold that when one disagrees with an epistemic peer about some proposition p, one should significantly change one's view about p. Many arguments for conciliationism appeal to a principle Christensen [2011] dubs Independence. Independence says that evaluations of the beliefs of those with whom one disagrees should not be made on the basis of one's initial reasoning about p. In this paper, I show that this principle is false. I also show that two weaker pri…Read more
  •  1386
    The Importance of Being Rational
    Dissertation, Princeton University. 2013.
    My dissertation is a systematic defense of the claim that what it is to be rational is to correctly respond to the reasons you possess. The dissertation is split into two parts, each consisting of three chapters. In Part I--Coherence, Possession, and Correctly Responding--I argue that my view has important advantages over popular views in metaethics that tie rationality to coherence (ch. 2), defend a novel view of what it is to possess a reason (ch. 3), and defend a novel view about what it is t…Read more
  •  474
    Acting for the Right Reasons, Abilities, and Obligation
    In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 10, Oxford University Press. 2015.
    Objectivists about obligation hold that obligations are determined by all of the normatively relevant facts. Perspectivalists, on the other hand, hold that only facts within one's perspective can determine what we are obligated to do. In this paper I argue for a perspectivalist view. On my view, what you are obligated to do is determined by the normative reasons you possess. My argument for my view is anchored in the thought that our obligations have to be action-guiding in a certain sense--we h…Read more
  •  253
    On the Rational Power of Aesthetic Testimony
    British Journal of Aesthetics 56 (1): 1-13. 2016.
    Can one know aesthetic facts on the basis of testimony? Optimists say that we can. Pessimists say that we cannot. Daniel Whiting has recently put forth a new argument for pessimism about the epistemic power of aesthetic testimony. He seeks to establish pessimism by arguing that testimonial beliefs cannot justify the downstream reactions that would otherwise be justified if one had aesthetic knowledge. In this paper, I will show that there is a plausible alternative explanation of the data that W…Read more