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5The Little PeopleIn Noël Carroll & Lester H. Hunt (eds.), Philosophy in The Twilight Zone, Wiley-blackwell. 2009.This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Is Power Sufficient? Is Power Necessary? The Power to Make Others Worship Conclusion Notes.
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313Grounding Moralism: Moral Flaws and Aesthetic PropertiesJournal of Aesthetic Education 45 (4): 34-53. 2011.My goal in this article is to provide support for the claim that moral flaws can be detrimental to an artwork's aesthetic value. I argue that moral flaws can become aesthetic flaws when they defeat the operation of good-making aesthetic properties. I do not defend a new theory of aesthetic properties or aesthetic value; instead, I attempt to show that on both the response-dependence and the supervenience account of aesthetic properties, moral flaws with an artwork are relevant to what aestheti…Read more
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214The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love (edited book)Oxford University Press. 2024.The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love offers a wide array of original essays on the nature and value of love. The editors, Christopher Grau and Aaron Smuts, have assembled an esteemed group of thinkers, including both established scholars and younger voices. The volume contains thirty-three essays addressing both issues about love as well as key philosophers who have contributed to the philosophy of love, such as Plato, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Murdoch. The topics range from central is…Read more
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616HorrorIn Paisley Livingston & Carl Plantinga (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film, Routledge. 2008.Three questions have occupied much of the philosophical literature on cinematic horror: What is horror? How is it able to frighten and disgust? Why do we seek out horror if it horrifies? Although there are numerous other important topics, this entry will focus on these three general questions, since they motivate the overwhelming majority of the philosophical writing on cinematic horror.
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The ethics of singing along : the case of "Mind of a lunatic"In Jeanette Bicknell & John Andrew Fisher (eds.), Song, songs, and singing, Wiley. 2013.
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132On Transwomen and Sports: Evaluating the ArgumentsArc Digital 6 (6.1.2019). 2019.The move for greater inclusion of transwomen in women’s sports through the adoption of increasingly less stringent criteria has progressed very quickly, faster than public consensus, and seemingly without much debate. In an effort to further rational discussion of this issue, I want to lay out clear versions of the best arguments in favor of greater inclusion. Versions of these arguments have been appearing in a variety of merged and mangled forms in popular and social media. Hence, my task is …Read more
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670To Be or Never to Have Been: Anti-Natalism and a Life Worth LivingEthical Theory and Moral Practice 17 (4): 711-729. 2013.David Benatar argues that being brought into existence is always a net harm and never a benefit. I disagree. I argue that if you bring someone into existence who lives a life worth living (LWL), then you have not all things considered wronged her. Lives are worth living if they are high in various objective goods and low in objective bads. These lives constitute a net benefit. In contrast, lives worth avoiding (LWA) constitute a net harm. Lives worth avoiding are net high in objective bads and l…Read more
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107The Metaphorics of Hume's Gendered SkepticismIn Anne Jaap Jacobson (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of David Hume, Pennsylvania State University Press. 2000.In "Of Scepticism with Regard to the Senses" (Treatise I.IV.II) David Hume begins by saying that he will attempt to trace the causes of our belief in a mind-independent world, "a belief we must take for granted in all our reasonings". Yet the causes arrived at – namely natural inclination or imagination - are presented as so untrustworthy as to cast doubt on the credibility of the inescapable belief itself. However, in the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding Hume presents a radically differ…Read more
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111Haunting the House from Within: Disbelief Mitigation and Spatial ExperienceFilm-Philosophy 6 (1). 2002.The Haunting, Directed by Robert Wise MGM/Argyle, 1963.
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2205The Ethics of Singing Along: The Case of “Mind of a Lunatic”Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 71 (1): 121-129. 2013.In contrast to film, theater, and literature, audiences typically sing along with popular songs. This can encourage a first-person mode of engagement with the narrative content. Unlike mere spectators, listeners sometimes imagine acting out the content when it is recited in the first-person. This is a common mode of engaging with popular music. And it can be uniquely morally problematic. It is problematic when it involves the enjoyment of imaginatively doing evil. I defend a Moorean view on the …Read more
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27'The Little People': Power and the WorshipableIn Lester Hunt & Noel Carroll (eds.), The Twilight Zone and Philosophy, Blackwell. 2008.Philosophers and social scientists have explored the ritual practices and the experience of worship, but there has been relatively little discussion of what makes something worthy of worship.However, we find a characteristically sophisticated examination of the issue by Rod Serling in the Twilight Zone episode "The Little People" (3rd Season, March 30, 1962). By considering the example of “The Little People” and a few variations, we can clarify the role power plays in making something worthy of …Read more
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61Reply to Elliott: In Defense of the Good Cause AccountFilm and Philosophy 17 47-57. 2013.Jay Elliott raises an important objection to the central claim of my paper "It’s a Wonderful Life: Pottersville and the Meaning of Life.” There I defend the good cause account (GCA) of the meaning of life. GCA holds that one's life is meaningful to the extent that one is causally responsible for objective good. Elliott argues that although GCA correctly implies that George Bailey lives a meaningful life, it might also imply that Potter's life is meaningful. But this is absurd. To avoid this prob…Read more
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1493Rubber Ring: Why do we listen to sad songs?In Noël Carroll & John Gibson (eds.), Narrative, Emotion, and Insight, Pennsylvania State University Press. pp. 131. 2011.In this essay, I discuss a few ways in which songs are used, ways in which listeners engage with and find meaning in music. I am most interested in sad songs—those that typically feature narratives about lost love, separation, missed opportunity, regret, hardship, and all manner of heartache. Many of us are drawn to sad songs in moments of emotional distress. The problem is that sad songs do not always make us feel better; to the contrary, they often make us feel worse. So, why do we listen …Read more
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461Normative Reasons for Love, Part IPhilosophy Compass 9 (8): 507-517. 2014.Are there normative reasons for love? More specifically, is it possible to rationally justify love? Or can we at best provide explanations for why we love? In Part I of this entry, I discuss the nature of love, theories of emotion, and what it takes to justify an attitude. In Part II, I provide an overview of the various positions one might take on the rational justification of love. I focus on the debate between defenders of the no-reasons view and the reasons view. Along the way, I discuss the…Read more
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94I defend five theses about caring: Thesis 1: Animals can care. Thesis 2: Care is not an emotion. Thesis 3: To care is to value. Thesis 4: Caring cannot be reduced to belief. Thesis 5: Caring cannot be reduced to desire. These five theses do not amount to a full-fledged theory of care, but they get us much closer to a workable analysis. They help sketch some of the contours of the concept and close off a few false starts. This paper is principally structured as an argument from elimination. I sho…Read more
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1549Immortality and SignificancePhilosophy and Literature 35 (1): 134-149. 2011.Although I reject his argument, I defend Bernard Williams’s claim that we would lose reason to go on if we were to live forever. Through a consideration of Borges’s story "The Immortal," I argue that immortality would be motivationally devastating, since our decisions would carry little weight, our achievements would be hollow victories of mere diligence, and the prospect of eternal frustration would haunt our every effort. An immortal life for those of limited ability will inevitably result i…Read more
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78Film as Philosophy: In Defense of a Bold ThesisJournal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67 (4): 409-420. 2009.
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793Video Games and the Philosophy of ArtAmerican Society for Aesthetics Newsletter. 2005.The most cursory look at video games raises several interesting issues that have yet to receive any consideration in the philosophy of art, such as: Are videogames art and, if so, what kind of art are they? Are they more closely related to film, or are they similar to performance arts, such as dance? Perhaps they are more akin to competitive sports and games like diving and chess? Can we even define “video game” or “game”? We often say that video games are interactive, but what is interactivity …Read more
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256The Salacious and the Satirical: In Defense of Symmetric Comic MoralismJournal of Aesthetic Education 47 (4): 45-62. 2013.A common view holds that humor and morality are antithetical: Moral flaws enhance amusement, and moral virtues detract. I reject both of these claims. If we distinguish between merely outrageous jokes and immoral jokes, the problems with the common view become apparent. What we find is that genuine morals flaws tend to inhibit amusement. Further, by looking at satire, we can see that moral virtues sometimes enhance amusement. The position I defend is called symmetric comic moralism. It is …Read more
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620The feels good theory of pleasurePhilosophical Studies 155 (2): 241-265. 2011.Most philosophers since Sidgwick have thought that the various forms of pleasure differ so radically that one cannot find a common, distinctive feeling among them. This is known as the heterogeneity problem. To get around this problem, the motivational theory of pleasure suggests that what makes an experience one of pleasure is our reaction to it, not something internal to the experience. I argue that the motivational theory is wrong, and not only wrong, but backwards. The heterogeneity problem …Read more
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261Philosophy of Film: An IntroductionRoutledge. 2016.Philosophy of Film: A Contemporary Introduction (Routledge) provides a critical overview of the literature on eleven different issues in the philosophy of film, from "What is Film?" to "Can Film Do Philosophy?" It aims to provide an objective overview of the principal arguments on each side of the issues. The set of issues includes all of the most important topics as well as some that are less well represented in the discipline, such as whether the power of cinema derives from its similarity to …Read more
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298It’s a Wonderful LifeFilm and Philosophy 16 15-33. 2012.It’s a Wonderful Life (Capra, 1946) presents a plausible theory of the meaning of life: One's life is meaningful to the extent that it promotes the good. Although this theory is credible, the movie suggests a problematic refinement in the Pottersville sequence. George's waking nightmare asks us to compare the actual world with a world where he did not exist. It tells us that we are only responsible for the good that would not exist had we not existed. I argue that this is a bad test. It fails wh…Read more
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453'Pickman's Model': Horror and the Objective Purport of PhotographsRevue Internationale de Philosophie 4 487-509. 2010.It is commonly held, even among non-Bazinians, that photographs are typically perceived as more objective than other forms of depiction. The implications of this putative feature of photographic reception for the fiction film have been relatively ignored. If photos do have an objective purport, it would explain the power of a common device used in horror movies where a monster is selectively revealed through a degraded image, usually an amateur video recording. However, I argue that a better …Read more
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685Theories of well-being tell us what makes a life good for the one who lives it. But there is more to what makes a life worth living than just well-being. We care about the worth of our lives, and we are right to do so. I defend an objective list theory of the worth of a life: The most worthwhile lives are those high in various objective goods. These principally include welfare and meaning. By distinguishing between worth and welfare, we can capture the intuitive pull of broad theories of welfare…Read more
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It is widely assumed that we can meaningfully talk about emotional reactions as being appropriate or inappropriate. Much of the discussion has focused on one kind of appropriateness, that of fittingness. An emotional response is appropriate only if it fits its object. For instance, fear only fits dangerous things. There is another dimension of appropriateness that has been relatively ignored — proportionality. For an emotional reaction to be appropriate not only must the object fit, the reaction…Read more
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1559Are Video Games Art?Contemporary Aesthetics 3. 2005.I argue that by any major definition of art many modern video games should be considered art. Rather than defining art and defending video games based on a single contentious definition, I offer reasons for thinking that video games can be art according to historical, aesthetic, institutional, representational and expressive theories of art. Overall, I argue that while many video games probably should not be considered art, there are good reasons to think that some video games should be classifi…Read more
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993The paradox of painful artJournal of Aesthetic Education 41 (3): 59-77. 2007.Many of the most popular genres of narrative art are designed to elicit negative emotions: emotions that are experienced as painful or involving some degree of pain, which we generally avoid in our daily lives. Melodramas make us cry. Tragedies bring forth pity and fear. Conspiratorial thrillers arouse feelings of hopelessness and dread, and devotional religious art can make the believer weep in sorrow. Not only do audiences know what these artworks are supposed to do; they seek them out in purs…Read more
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107The Ethics of Imagination and FantasyIn Amy Kind (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Imagination, Routledge. 2016.The "ethics of imagination" or the "ethics of fantasy" encompasses the various ways in which we can morally evaluate the imagination. This topic covers a range of different kinds of imagination: (1) fantasizing, (2) engaging with fictions, and (3) dreaming. The clearest, live ethical question concerns the moral value of taking pleasure in undeserved suffering, whether willfully imagined, represented, or dreamed. Much of this entry concerns general theoretical considerations and how they relate t…Read more
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Areas of Specialization
| Philosophy of Action |
| Aesthetics |
| Normative Ethics |
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| Metaphysics |
| Philosophy of Mind |
| Philosophy of Religion |
| Applied Ethics |
| Meta-Ethics |
| Social and Political Philosophy |