University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2004
Claremont, California, United States
  •  275
    Owning up and lowering down: The power of apology
    Journal of Philosophy 107 (10): 534-553. 2010.
    Apologies are strange. They are, in a certain sense, very small. An apology is just a gesture—a set of words, a physical posture, perhaps a gift. But an apology can also be very powerful—this power is implicit in the facts that it can be difficult to offer an apology and that, when we are wronged, we may want an apology very much. More, even we have been severely wronged, we are sometimes willing to forgive or pardon the wrongdoer, if we receive a sincere apology. In this paper, I want to begin …Read more
  •  250
    Hopes and Dreams
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 83 (1). 2010.
    It is a commonplace in both the popular imagination and the philosophical literature that hope has a special kind of motivational force. This commonplace underwrites the conviction that hope alone is capable of bolstering us in despairinducing circumstances, as well as the strategy of appealing to hope in the political realm. In section 1, I argue that, to the contrary, hope’s motivational essence is not special or unique—it is simply that of an endorsed desire. The commonplace is not entirely m…Read more
  •  153
    How to argue for the value of humanity
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87 (1): 96-125. 2006.
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, March 2006. Significant effort has been devoted to locating a good argument for Kant ’s Formula of Humanity. In this paper, I contrast two arguments, based on Kant ’s text, for the Formula of Humanity. The first, which I call the “Valued Ends” argument, is an influential and appealing argument developed most notably by Christine Korsgaard and Allen Wood. Notwithstanding the appeal and influence of this argument, it ultimately fails on several counts. I therefore …Read more
  •  117
    Hope and Exploitation
    Hastings Center Report 38 (5): 49-55. 2008.
    How do we encourage patients to be hopeful without exploiting their hope? A medical researcher or a pharmaceutical company can take unfair advantage of someone's hope by much subtler means than simply giving misinformation. Hope shapes deliberation, and therefore can make deliberation better or worse, by the deliberator's own standards of deliberation.
  •  102
    Personal Bonds: Directed Obligations without Rights
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (1): 65-86. 2021.
    I argue for adopting a conception of obligation that is broader than the conception commonly adopted by moral philosophers. According to this broader conception, the crucial marks of an obligatory action are, first, that the reasons for the obliged party to perform the action include an exclusionary reason and, second, that the obliged party is the appropriate target of blaming reactive attitudes, if they inexcusably fail to perform the obligatory action. An obligation is directed if the exclusi…Read more
  •  97
    Love, Incorporated
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (4): 691-702. 2015.
    In this paper, I outline a Kantian moral psychology and use it to generate an analysis of the emotional attitude, love. At the heart of this moral psychology is a distinction between rational and subrational motives, and the thesis that interpersonal emotional attitudes like love are governed by a norm of respect. I show how an analysis of love that relies on this moral psychology—which I call “the incorporation conception” of love—tightly fits with paradigmatic cases of romantic love, reveals b…Read more
  •  74
    Tales Publicly Allowed: Competence, Capacity, and Religious Belief
    Hastings Center Report 37 (1): 33-40. 2007.
    What should we make of someone whose beliefs prevent her from accurately understanding her medical needs and care? Should that person still make her own health care decisions? In fact, she probably lacks decision‐making capacity. But that does not mean she is not competent.
  •  69
    How We Hope: A Moral Psychology
    Princeton University Press. 2014.
    What exactly is hope and how does it influence our decisions? In How We Hope, Adrienne Martin presents a novel account of hope, the motivational resources it presupposes, and its function in our practical lives. She contends that hoping for an outcome means treating certain feelings, plans, and imaginings as justified, and that hope thereby involves sophisticated reflective and conceptual capacities. Martin develops this original perspective on hope--what she calls the "incorporation analysis"--…Read more
  •  64
    The Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophy (edited book)
    Routledge Handbooks in Philoso. 2018.
    The Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophycollects 39 original chapters from prominent philosophers on the nature, meaning, value, and predicaments of love, presented in a unique framework that highlights the rich variety of methods and traditions used to engage with these subjects. This volume is structured around important realms of human life and activity, each of which receives its own section: I. Family and Friendship II. Romance and Sex III. Politics and Society IV. Animals, Nature, and …Read more
  •  56
    Appreciation and gratitude get good press: They are central virtues in many religious and secular ethical frameworks, core in positive psychology research, and they come highly recommended by the self‐improvement set. Generally, appreciation and gratitude feature as good things, in popular consciousness. Of course, on an Aristotelian model, the belief that these are virtues implies they are something people can get right or wrong. This paper examines bad appreciation and bad gratitude, character…Read more
  •  44
    Emotion and the emotions
    In Roger Crisp (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the History of Ethics, Oxford University Press. 2013.
    The dominant consequentialist, Kantian, and contractualist theories by virtue ethicists such as G.E.M. Anscombe, Alisdair MacIntyre, Martha Nussbaum, and Michael Stocker have been criticized for their neglect of the emotions. There are three reasons why it might be a mistake for moral philosophy to neglect the emotions. Emotions have an important influence on motivation, and proper cultivation of the emotions is helpful, perhaps essential, to our ability to lead ethical lives. It is a plausible …Read more
  •  41
    The expressive meaning of enhancement
    with Jehanna Peerzada
    American Journal of Bioethics 5 (3). 2005.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  37
    Review of Barbara Herman, Moral Literacy (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2007 (9). 2007.
  •  36
    Commentary
    with Catherine Hickey
    Hastings Center Report 41 (2): 18-18. 2012.
    There are instances where religious beliefs can negatively impact a patient's decision-making capability. Any belief system that categorically prohibits psychiatric treatment in all cases is dangerous. The situation is illustrated through a case of a patient with schizophrenia who refuses to acknowledge her disease because of her religion.
  •  36
    Coping: A Philosophical Guide (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 73 (3): 866-869. 2022.
    Luc Bovens presents his book, Coping: A Philosophical Guide, as a teaching text, aimed at generating classroom discussion. Several features of the book suit it
  •  36
    The extent of the approval with which Western culture views the attitude of hope can scarcely be exaggerated. Hope is seen as that which sustains us through wartime, death camps, slavery, natural disaster, extreme disease and disability—it is a light, a beacon, the last spark that fuels us when all else has failed. Hope is also seen as a moral and spiritual virtue—hoping for moral progress in this world, and salvation in the next, is at the heart of a meaningful human life. A positive view of ho…Read more
  •  31
    Doing Valuable Time is the kind of book—rarer in philosophy, I think, than one might wish—that invites personal reflection. Boredom, contentment, hope, intention, and decisions about how to spend time (or the lack of freedom to make such decisions) are such familiar pieces of our everyday lives that they can glide by almost without notice. Calhoun’s work equips the reader to contemplate these phenomena as significant consequences and constituents of human nature.
  •  28
    Introduction. What is Hope?
    In How We Hope: A Moral Psychology, Princeton University Press. pp. 1-10. 2014.
  •  27
    How to Betray Your Android
    The Philosophers' Magazine 76 35-41. 2017.
  •  25
    Refusing to pursue recent and possible future developments in medical research is itself a morally momentous decision—and that inaction has consequences Cohen and other right-wing thinkers refuse to acknowledge.
  •  25
    5. Normative Hope
    In How We Hope: A Moral Psychology, Princeton University Press. pp. 118-140. 2014.
  •  15
    Acknowledgments
    In How We Hope: A Moral Psychology, Princeton University Press. 2014.
  •  14
    Commentary
    Hastings Center Report 41 (2): 19-19. 2011.
  •  10
    1. Beyond the Orthodox Definition of Hope
    In How We Hope: A Moral Psychology, Princeton University Press. pp. 11-34. 2014.
  •  8
    3. Suicide and Sustenance
    In How We Hope: A Moral Psychology, Princeton University Press. pp. 72-97. 2014.
  •  7
    4. Faith and Sustenance without Contingency
    In How We Hope: A Moral Psychology, Princeton University Press. pp. 98-117. 2014.