•  2
    The personal qualities that have been called epistemic virtues are a motley crew, including character traits like open-mindedness and curiosity, cognitive faculties like intelligence and memory, and intellectual abilities, such as the ability to solve complex mathematical problems. We value such qualities, in ourselves and others. But why? Is it because of the role they play in securing some epistemic good for their possessor, such as knowledge, wisdom, or understanding? Or—since we seem to valu…Read more
  • The Revival of Virtue Ethics
    In Iain Thomson & Kelly Becker (eds.), Cambridge History of Philosophy 1946-2010, Cambridge. pp. 223-236. 2019.
    In the second half of the twentieth century, an influential strain of ethical thinking conceptualized itself as a revival of an ancient ethical tradition, as against modern moral philosophy, and in particular as a recovery of two central ethical concepts: virtue and eudaimonia. This revival paved the way for virtue ethics to be regarded as one of the “big three” approaches in ethics, alongside deontological and consequentialist approaches. Early developments of virtue ethics were eudaimonist, ha…Read more
  •  1
    The Challenge of Measuring Well-Being as Philosophers Conceive of It
    In Matthew T. Lee, Laura D. Kubzansky & Tyler J. VanderWeele (eds.), Measuring Well-Being, Oxford University Press. pp. 257-282. 2021.
    Many philosophers find the prospect of working with researchers in the social and behavioral sciences exciting, in part because they hope that these researchers might be able to measure well-being as the philosopher conceives of it. In this chapter, I consider how the measurement of well- being, as it is conceived of by philosophers, might feasibly be facilitated. I propose that existing scales can be employed to measure well-being as philosophers conceive of it. I support this conclusion throug…Read more
  •  353
    Doxastic Harm
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 46 281-306. 2022.
    In this article, I will consider whether, and in what way, doxastic states can harm. I’ll first consider whether, and in what way, a person’s doxastic state can harm her, before turning to the question of whether, and in what way, it can harm someone else.
  •  370
    Pragmatic Encroachment and Practical Reasons
    In Brian Kim & Matthew McGrath (eds.), Pragmatic Encroachment in Epistemology, Routledge. 2019.
    Defenders of pragmatic encroachment in epistemology hold that practical factors have implications for a belief’s epistemic status. Paradigm defenders of pragmatic encroachment have held—to state their positions roughly— that whether someone’s belief that p constitutes knowledge depends on the practical reasons that she has (Stanley 2005), that knowing p is necessary and sufficient for treating p as a reason for action (Hawthorne and Stanley 2008), or that knowing p is sufficient for reasonably a…Read more
  •  132
    Pragmatic encroachment in accounts of epistemic excellence
    Synthese 190 (17): 3929-3952. 2013.
    Recently a number of philosophers have argued for a kind of encroachment of the practical into the epistemic. Fantl and McGrath, for example, argue that if a subject knows that p, then she is rational to act as if p. (Fantl and McGrath 2007) In this paper I make a preliminary case for what we might call encroachment in, not knowledge or justification, but epistemic excellence, recent accounts of which include those of Roberts and Wood (2007), Bishop and Trout (2005), and Baehr (2011). I beli…Read more
  •  3
    Virtue and Well-Being
    In Guy Fletcher (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Well-Being, Routledge. pp. 242-258. 2015.
    Ask a non-philosopher whether it’s rational to be moral, and she will likely think the answer is relatively clear: intuitively, what is moral is often at odds with what is rational. For example, although giving a dollar to a needy stranger would be a moral thing to do, the rational thing to do would be to keep it for yourself. Among professional philosophers, by contrast, the answer is not so obvious. Philosophers have subtle views of rationality and morality. Seldom, if ever, do they understand…Read more
  •  581
    The Role of Welfare in Eudaimonism
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 51 (4): 511-535. 2013.
    Eudaimonists deny that eudaimonism is objectionably egoistic, but the way in which they do so commits them to eschewing an important insight that has been a central motivation for eudaimonism: the idea that an individual must, in the end, organize her life in such a way that it is good for her. In this paper I argue that the egoism objection prods eudaimonists to make a choice between (what we might roughly call) welfare-prior and excellence-prior eudaimonism, and I make some preliminary remarks…Read more
  •  516
    Eudaimonia in Contemporary Virtue Ethics
    In Stan van Hooft (ed.), The Handbook of Virtue Ethics, Acumen Publishing. pp. 17-27. 2014.
    In the contemporary virtue ethics literature, eudaimonia is discussed far more often than it is defined or fully articulated. It was introduced into the contemporary virtue ethics literature by philosophers who work in ancient philosophy, and who are familiar with the work of ancient eudaimonists (where the ancient eudaimonists are typically thought to include Plato, the Stoics, and (especially) Aristotle). Yet, predictably, among philosophers who study ancient philosophy, there is not consensu…Read more
  •  17
    Aristotle and the Virtues. By Howard Curzer (review)
    Ancient Philosophy 34 (1): 216-219. 2014.
  •  1
    Equality, Flourishing, and the Problem of Predation
    In Mylan Engel Jr & Gary Lynn Comstock (eds.), The Moral Rights of Animals, Lexington Books. pp. 81-103. 2016.
    Tom Regan holds that all subjects-of-a-life possess equal inherent value, and thus have an equal right to be treated with respect. In this chapter, I consider an apparent implication of Regan's principle: that we have an obligation to rescue prey from their predators. This apparent implication is counterintuitive to many people who otherwise accept Regan's principle, so it is worth considering whether it is indeed implied by Regan's principle. Regan argues that his principle does not imply we …Read more
  •  41
    The Ethical Importance of Roles
    Journal of Value Inquiry 50 (4): 721-734. 2016.
  •  143
    A eudaimonist approach to the problem of significance
    Acta Analytica 25 (2): 215-241. 2010.
    Some beliefs seem more significant than others. This paper suggests an approach to explaining this apparent fact. As there are multiple senses in which one belief may be more significant than another, multiple possible sources of such significance, and, moreover, no prima facie reason to expect a single, unified account under which all these senses and sources can be subsumed, I propose the modest approach of articulating just one feature in virtue of which a belief may fairly be called signific…Read more
  •  55
    ABSTRACTIn this paper, I argue that, contrary to popular opinion, there is good reason to think that the qualities that make people good reasoners also make them better off. I will focus specifically on epistemic virtue: roughly, the kind of character in virtue of which one is excellently oriented towards epistemic goods. I propose that epistemic virtue is importantly implicated in the realization of some of the goods that are widely believed to be instrumental to, or even constitutive of, well-…Read more