•  92
    Saving the World Starts at Home
    Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy 21 (Special): 769-785. 2024.
    Creating a good home is a form of effective altruism and effective altruists should treat it as such.
  •  23
    Every year, millions of students in the United States and around the world graduate from high school and college. Commencement speakers—often distilling the hopes of parents and four years of messaging from educators—tell graduates that they must do something grand, ambitious, or far-reaching. Change the world. Disrupt the status quo. Every problem in the world is your problem, awaiting your solutions. This book is an antidote to that advice. It provides a clear-eyed assessment of three types of…Read more
  •  606
    Worship and Veneration
    In Aaron Segal & Samuel Lebens (eds.), The Philosophy of Worship: Divine and Human Aspects, Cambridge University Press. forthcoming.
    Various strands of religious thought distinguish veneration from worship. According to these traditions, believers ought to worship God alone. To worship anything else, they say, is idolatry. And yet many of these same believers also claim to venerate—but not worship—saints, angels, images, relics, tombs, and even each other. But what's the difference? Tim Bayne and Yujin Nagasawa (2006: 302) are correct that “it seems to be extremely difficult to distinguish veneration from worship.” Many have …Read more
  •  2
    Performative Accounts of Forgiveness
    In Glen Pettigrove & Robert Enright (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Psychology of Forgiveness, Routledge. pp. 255-272. 2023.
    Many philosophers think that forgiveness is a private affair. Some say forgiveness is the forswearing or overcoming or moderating of resentment (or other negative emotions). Others say that to forgive is to refuse to punish. Some say forgiveness is openness to reconciliation with one’s wrongdoer. According to these approaches, forgiveness involves certain changes in one’s beliefs, desires, feelings, emotions, decisions, intentions, commitments, and memories. What these accounts all have in commo…Read more
  •  513
    Don't Block the Exits
    In J. P. Messina (ed.), New Directions in the Ethics and Politics of Speech, Routledge. pp. 50-60. 2022.
    In contemporary political discussions, it is depressingly common to see people criticized for expressing impure beliefs. Moreover, those who sometimes defect from their tribe are criticized for failing to be firmly enough on the side of the angels. We consider explanations for this behavior, including its relationship to moral grandstanding. We will also argue, on both moral and epistemic grounds, in favor of a norm against “blocking the exits.” We should not use social pressure to discourage pe…Read more
  •  1261
    Conservative Critiques
    In Matt Zwolinski & Benjamin Ferguson (eds.), The Routledge Companion to Libertarianism, Routledge. pp. 579-592. 2022.
    American sociologist Robert Nisbet once described conservatives and libertarians as “uneasy cousins.” The description is apt. While sharing a family resemblance and many of the same political rivals, conservatism and libertarianism are fundamentally at odds. This paper explains why this is so from the conservative perspective. It surveys the starting points and major themes of conservatism and libertarianism. It identifies what conservatives and libertarians agree about. It concludes by showing…Read more
  •  291
    Moral grandstanding, narcissism, and self-reported responses to the COVID-19 crisis
    with Joshua B. Grubbs, A. Shanti James, and Justin Tosi
    Journal of Research in Personality 97 (104187): 1-10. 2022.
    The present study aimed to understand how status-oriented individual differences such as narcissistic antagonism, narcissistic extraversion, and moral grandstanding motivations may have longitudinally predicted both behavioral and social media responses during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Via YouGov, a nationally representative sample of U.S. adults was recruited in August of 2019 (N = 2,519; Mage = 47.5, SD = 17.8; 51.4% women) and resampled in May of 2020, (N = 1,533). Results in…Read more
  •  4
    Forgiveness and Its Moral Dimensions (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2021.
    Philosophical interest in forgiveness has seen a resurgence. This interest reflects, at least in part, a large body of new work in psychology, several newsworthy cases of institutional apology and forgiveness, and intense and increased attention to the practices surrounding responsibility, blame, and praise. In this book, some of the world's leading philosophers present twelve entirely new essays on forgiveness. Some contributors have been writing about forgiveness for decades. Others have taken…Read more
  •  484
    Responsibility and Situationism
    In Dana Kay Nelkin & Derk Pereboom (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Moral Responsibility, Oxford University Press. pp. 468-493. 2022.
    This chapter explores the relationship between an agent’s moral responsibility for their actions and the situations in which an agent acts. Decades of research in psychology are sometimes thought to support situationism, the view that features of an agent’s situation greatly influence their behavior in powerful and surprising ways. Such situational fea­tures might therefore be thought to threaten agents’ abilities to act freely and responsi­bly. This chapter begins by discussing some relevant em…Read more
  •  1191
    Moral grandstanding and political polarization: A multi-study consideration
    with Joshua B. Grubbs, Justin Tosi, and A. Shanti James
    Journal of Research in Personality 88. 2020.
    The present work posits that social motives, particularly status seeking in the form of moral grandstanding, are likely at least partially to blame for elevated levels of affective polarization and ideological extremism in the U.S. In Study 1, results from both undergraduates (N = 981; Mean age = 19.4; SD = 2.1; 69.7% women) and a cross-section of U.S. adults matched to 2010 census norms (N = 1,063; Mean age = 48.20, SD = 16.38; 49.8% women) indicated that prestige-motived grandstanding was cons…Read more
  •  57
    Grandstanding: The Use and Abuse of Moral Talk
    Oxford University Press. 2020.
    We are all guilty of it. We call people terrible names in conversation or online. We vilify those with whom we disagree, and make bolder claims than we could defend. We want to be seen as taking the moral high ground not just to make a point, or move a debate forward, but to look a certain way--incensed, or compassionate, or committed to a cause. We exaggerate. In other words, we grandstand. Nowhere is this more evident than in public discourse today, and especially as it plays out across the i…Read more
  •  1066
    Moral grandstanding as a threat to free expression
    Social Philosophy and Policy 37 (2): 170-189. 2020.
    Moral grandstanding, or the use of moral talk for self-promotion, is a threat to free expression. When grandstanding is introduced in a public forum, several ideals of free expression are less likely to be realized. Popular views are less likely to be challenged, people are less free to entertain heterodox ideas, and the cost of changing one’s mind goes up.
  •  504
    Moral Grandstanding in Public Discourse: Status-Seeking Motives as a Potential Explanatory Mechanism in Predicting Conflict
    with Joshua B. Grubbs, Justin Tosi, A. Shanti James, and W. Keith Campbell
    PLoS ONE 14 (10). 2019.
    Public discourse is often caustic and conflict-filled. This trend seems to be particularly evident when the content of such discourse is around moral issues (broadly defined) and when the discourse occurs on social media. Several explanatory mechanisms for such conflict have been explored in recent psychological and social-science literatures. The present work sought to examine a potentially novel explanatory mechanism defined in philosophical literature: Moral Grandstanding. According to philos…Read more
  •  641
    Stump's Forgiveness
    European Journal for Philosophy of Religion 11 (1): 145-163. 2019.
    To love someone, Eleonore Stump tells us, is to have two desires: a desire her objective good and a desire for union with her. In Atonement, Stump claims that loving someone—understood as having these desires—is necessary and sufficient for morally appropriate forgiveness. I offer several arguments against this claim.
  •  85
    God’s Standing to Forgive
    Faith and Philosophy 34 (4): 381-402. 2017.
    It is generally thought that we cannot forgive people for things they do to others. I cannot forgive you for lying to your mother, for instance. I lack standing to do so. But many people believe that God can forgive us for things we do to others. How is this possible? This is the question I wish to explore. Call it the problem of divine standing. I begin by cataloging the various ways one can have standing to forgive a wrongdoer. I then provide two solutions to the problem of divine standing.
  •  45
    Many people believe that God has forgiven them for the wrong things they have done. What is the nature of God's forgiveness? In this essay, the second in a two-part series, I explore two further approaches to this question. I conclude by noting a few issues that, in my estimation, should be addressed in future philosophical discussions of the nature of divine forgiveness.
  •  57
    In this, the first essay in a two-part series, I begin by distinguishing between three kinds of inquiries about divine forgiveness. I then canvass two approaches to theorizing the nature of divine forgiveness, developing them in various ways, and noting where, in my estimation, there are problems.
  •  6935
    Moral Grandstanding
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 44 (3): 197-217. 2016.
    Moral grandstanding is a pervasive feature of public discourse. Many of us can likely recognize that we have engaged in grandstanding at one time or another. While there is nothing new about the phenomenon of grandstanding, we think that it has not received the philosophical attention it deserves. In this essay, we provide an account of moral grandstanding as the use of public discourse for moral self-promotion. We then show that our account, with support from some standard theses of social psyc…Read more
  •  206
    The Normative Significance of Forgiveness
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 94 (4): 687-703. 2016.
    ABSTRACTP.F. Strawson claimed that forgiveness is such an essential part of our moral practices that we could not extricate it from our form of life even if we so desired. But what is it about forgiveness that would make it such a central feature of our moral experience? In this paper, I suggest that the answer has to do with what I will call the normative significance of forgiveness. Forgiveness is normatively significant in the sense that, in its paradigmatic instances, forgiving alters the op…Read more
  •  1127
    The Economic Model of Forgiveness
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 97 (4): 570-589. 2014.
    It is sometimes claimed that forgiveness involves the cancellation of a moral debt. This way of speaking about forgiveness exploits an analogy between moral forgiveness and economic debt-cancellation. Call the view that moral forgiveness is like economic debt-cancellation the Economic Model of Forgiveness. In this article I articulate and motivate the model, defend it against some recent objections, and pose a new puzzle for this way of thinking about forgiveness
  •  118
    Does Situationism Threaten Free Will and Moral Responsibility?
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 14 (6): 698-733. 2017.
    The situationist movement in social psychology has caused a considerable stir in philosophy. Much of this was prompted by the work of Gilbert Harman and John Doris. Both contended that familiar philosophical assumptions about the role of character in the explanation of action were not supported by experimental results. Most of the ensuing philosophical controversy has focused upon issues related to moral psychology and ethical theory. More recently, the influence of situationism has also given r…Read more
  •  1054
    Is Forgiveness the Deliberate Refusal to Punish?
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (4): 613-620. 2011.
    In his paper, “The Paradox of Forgiveness“ (this Journal 6 (2009), p. 365-393), Leo Zaibert defends the novel and interesting claim that to forgive is deliberately to refuse to punish. I argue that this is mistaken
  •  156
    Artifact and Essence
    Philosophia 38 (3): 595-614. 2010.
    An essential property is a property that an object possesses in every possible world in which that object exists. An individual essence is a property (or set of properties) that an object possesses in every world in which that object exists, and that no other object possesses in any possible world. Call the claim that some artifacts possess an individual essence ‘artifactual essentialism’. I will argue that artifactual essentialism is true.
  •  115
    Situationism versus Situationism
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18 (1): 9-26. 2015.
    Most discussions of John Doris’s situationism center on what can be called descriptive situationism, the claim that our folk usage of global personality and character traits in describing and predicting human behavior is empirically unsupported. Philosophers have not yet paid much attention to another central claim of situationism, which says that given that local traits are empirically supported, we can more successfully act in line with our moral values if, in our deliberation about what to do…Read more
  •  1154
    Articulate forgiveness and normative constraints
    Canadian Journal of Philosophy 45 (4): 1-25. 2015.
    Philosophers writing on forgiveness typically defend the Resentment Theory of Forgiveness, the view that forgiveness is the overcoming of resentment. Rarely is much more said about the nature of resentment or how it is overcome when one forgives. Pamela Hieronymi, however, has advanced detailed accounts both of the nature of resentment and how one overcomes resentment when one forgives. In this paper, I argue that Hieronymi’s account of the nature of forgiveness is committed to two implausible c…Read more
  •  136
    Moral Responsibility Invariantism
    Philosophia 39 (1): 179-200. 2011.
    Moral responsibility invariantism is the view that there is a single set of conditions for being morally responsible for an action (or omission or consequence of an act or omission) that applies in all cases. I defend this view against some recent arguments by Joshua Knobe and John Doris