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1740A Humean theory of moral intuitionCanadian Journal of Philosophy 43 (3): 360-381. 2013.According to the quasi-perceptualist account of philosophical intuitions, they are intellectual appearances that are psychologically and epistemically analogous to perceptual appearances. Moral intuitions share the key characteristics of other intuitions, but can also have a distinctive phenomenology and motivational role. This paper develops the Humean claim that the shared and distinctive features of substantive moral intuitions are best explained by their being constituted by moral emotions. …Read more
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45Metz, Thaddeus. Meaning in Life: An Analytic Study. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Pp. 269. $45.00 (review)Ethics 125 (2): 600-605. 2015.
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736Flourishing and FinitudeJournal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (2): 1-6. 2014.It would be terrible for us if humanity ceased to exist after we all die. But of course, eventually humanity will go out of existence. Does this result in a vicious regress if our flourishing hangs on what happens after us? Mark Johnston thinks so. In this note, I explain how Johnston's objection can be avoided. Briefly, our activities have a meaning horizon that extends for some generations after us. What matters is that we make a positive difference to the lives of those generations, not that …Read more
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3260Empathy, Emotion Regulation, and Moral JudgmentIn Heidi Maibom (ed.), Empathy and Morality, Oxford University Press. 2014.In this paper, my aim is to bring together contemporary psychological literature on emotion regulation and the classical sentimentalism of David Hume and Adam Smith to arrive at a plausible account of empathy's role in explaining patterns of moral judgment. Along the way, I criticize related arguments by Michael Slote, Jesse Prinz, and others
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816The Narrative CalculusOxford Studies in Normative Ethics 5. 2015.This paper examines systematically which features of a life story (or history) make it good for the subject herself - not aesthetically or morally good, but prudentially good. The tentative narrative calculus presented claims that the prudential narrative value of an event is a function of the extent to which it contributes to her concurrent and non-concurrent goals, the value of those goals, and the degree to which success in reaching the goals is deserved in virtue of exercising agency. The na…Read more
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183Moral Internalism and the BrainSocial Theory and Practice 34 (1): 1-24. 2008.In this article, the author discusses the methodology of the internalism debate and the role that neuroscience and related experimental methods can play in it. The author argues that findings in either actual or fictional experimental psychology or neuroscience have little relevance to the debate. He claims that the findings do not provide any independent support pro or con internalism. He also observes that the traditional view of the methodological autonomy of philosophical moral psychology re…Read more
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1921What Makes a Sentiment Moral?In Russ Shafer-Landau (ed.), Oxford Studies in Metaethics vol. 5, Oxford University Press. pp. 225-256. 2010.Update January 2010: The original title of the paper ('A Sentimentalist Solution to the Moral Attitude Problem') was too long for OUP, so I had to change it. This is the final draft.
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University of HelsinkiDepartment of Philosophy (Theoretical Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy in Swedish)Professor
University of Helsinki
Department of Philosophy (Theoretical Philosophy, Practical Philosophy, Philosophy in Swedish)
PhD, 2008
Helsinki, Finland