•  204
    Grounding Moralism: Moral Flaws and Aesthetic Properties
    Journal 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
  •  49
    The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2017.
    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
  • Horror
    In Paisley Livingston & Carl Plantinga (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film, Routledge. 2008.
  •  13
    Wings of Desire
    Film and Philosophy 13 137-150. 2009.
  •  131
    On Transwomen and Sports: Evaluating the Arguments
    Arc 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
  •  539
    To Be or Never to Have Been: Anti-Natalism and a Life Worth Living
    Ethical 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, 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 constitute a net harm. Lives worth avoiding are net high in objective bads and low in object…Read more
  •  67
    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
  •  25
    The Haunting, Directed by Robert Wise MGM/Argyle, 1963.
  •  738
    The 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
  •  22
    The Desire‐Frustration Theory of Suspense
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (3): 281-290. 2008.
  •  9
    Hitchcock as Philosopher by yanal, robert j
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (3): 339-341. 2007.
  •  614
    Horror
    In Paisley Livingston & Carl Plantinga (eds.), Routledge Companion to Philosophy and Film, . 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.
  • In this paper I critically evaluate the Devil Simulation Argument for cognitive immoralism—the position that moral flaws with a work of art can be cognitively virtuous, and thereby artistically valuable. I focus on Matthew Kieran's version of the argument. Kieran holds that by simulating the attitudes of fictional devils we can come to gain important moral insights. In response, I argue that we have no reason to believe that we can effectively adopt immoral attitudes, that any successf…Read more
  •  648
    Video Games and the Philosophy of Art
    American 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
  •  120
    Anesthetic experience
    Philosophy and Literature 29 (1): 97-113. 2005.
    While working to build his aesthetic theory from the qualities of normal, healthy experience, John Dewey diagnoses a rarely recognized experiential ailment -- what might be called the anesthetic malady. This illness generally results when experience is deprived of meaning due to the poverty of the predominant forms of activity available in one's environment. In Dewey's theory of aesthetic experience lies an easily overlooked social/political approach that predates, by almost half a century, rece…Read more
  •  126
    The Ghost is the Thing: Can Fiction Reveal Audience Belief?
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 34 (1): 219-239. 2010.
    Can fictions sometimes reveal important information about what beliefs audience members hold? I argue that a case can be made that emotional responses to some horror fictions can reveal that audiences harbor beliefs in the supernatural, beliefs that audience members might otherwise deny holding. To clarify the terms of the discussion, I begin with an overview of two leading theories of belief: the representational and dispositional accounts. I explore the role of belief in the production of emot…Read more
  •  29
    Reply to Elliott: In Defense of the Good Cause Account
    Film 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
  •  403
    Story Identity and Story Type
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67 (1): 5-14. 2009.
    Although it seems plausible to say that the same story can be retold in different media, it is difficult to say exactly what this would entail. The primary difficulty is in coming up with an acceptable theory of story identity. In this article I present several theories of story identity and explore their weaknesses. I argue that in the end we are left with two unattractive options: a strict theory that implies that the same story can almost never be retold and a lenient theory that has troub…Read more
  •  329
    Normative Reasons for Love, Part I
    Philosophy 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
  •  71
    Haunting the house from within: Disbelief, mitigation, and spatial experience
    In Steven Jay Schneider & Daniel Shaw (eds.), Film-Philosophy, Scarecrow Press. pp. 158--173. 2003.
    I attempt to explain the lasting effectiveness and critical success of Robert Wise’s The Haunting (1963) by roughly sketching the role that spectator belief might play in a revised version of the so-called “Thought Theory” of emotional response to fiction. I argue that The Haunting engages viewers in a process of “disbelief mitigation”—the sheltering of nontrivial, tenuously held beliefs required for optimal viewer response—that helps make the film work as horror, and prevents it from sliding in…Read more
  •  94
    I 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
  •  31
    Film as Philosophy: In Defense of a Bold Thesis
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 67 (4): 409-420. 2009.
  •  212
    The Paradox of Suspense
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2009 (6.1): 1-15. 2009.
    The ultimate success of Hollywood blockbusters is dependent upon repeat viewings. Fans return to theaters to see films multiple times and buy DVDs so they can watch movies yet again. Although it is something of a received dogma in philosophy and psychology that suspense requires uncertainty, many of the biggest box office successes are action movies that fans claim to find suspenseful on repeated viewings. The conflict between the theory of suspense and the accounts of viewers generates a proble…Read more
  •  189
    The Salacious and the Satirical: In Defense of Symmetric Comic Moralism
    Journal 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
  •  207
    The Desire-Frustration Theory of Suspense
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 66 (3): 281-291. 2008.
    What is suspense and how is it created? An answer to this question constitutes a theory of suspense. I propose that any theory of suspense needs to be able to account for three curious features: (1) Suspense is seldom felt in our daily lives, but frequently felt in response to works of fiction and other narrative artworks. [Narrative Imbalance] (2) It is widely thought that suspense requires uncertainty, but we often feel suspense in response to narratives when we have knowledge of the outcome.…Read more
  •  148
    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
  •  15
    Multiple Inheritance and Film Identity: A Reply to Dilworth
    Contemporary Aesthetics 1 1-3. 2003.
    I argue that Dilworth has not shown the type / token theory of film identity to be non-viable, since there is no reason to think that a single object cannot be a token of two types. Even if we assume a single inheritance view of types, Dilworth's argument runs into other problems. Dilworth does not provide any convincing argument as to why intentions are necessary for identifying film and why production history alone will not suffice for identifying hardly conceivable forgeries. Intention is …Read more
  •  236
    It’s a Wonderful Life
    Film 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
  •  62
    Review: Hitchcock as philosopher by Yanal, Robert J (review)
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 65 (3). 2007.
    In Hitchcock as Philosopher, Robert Yanal argues that not only can we find illustrations of philosophical ideas in Hitchcock's films, but that Hitchcock does philosophy through his movies. This is a bold claim. It would be ambitious to merely assert that there are elements in Hitchcock's movies that can support rich philosophical interpretations. This sets the bar high and forces the interpreter to prove the point by supplying productive readings of the films. But Yanal accepts an even more …Read more