•  30
    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
  •  226
    This is a draft of a talk I have given at several venues. At one point I planned to revise it for inclusion in the Oxford Handbook I co-edited, but for various reasons I decided against that. Since I still think it contains some useful material, I have uploaded it here. Feedback welcome.
  •  598
    Love and Power: Grau and Pury (2014) as a Case Study in the Challenges of X-Phi Replication
    with Edouard Machery and Cynthia L. Pury
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology (4): 1-17. 2020.
    Grau and Pury (Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 5, 155–168, 2014) reported that people’s views about love are related to their views about reference. This surprising effect was however not replicated in Cova et al.’s (in press) replication study. In this article, we show that the replication failure is probably due to the replication’s low power and that a metaanalytic reanalysis of the result in Cova et al. suggests that the effect reported in Grau and Pury is real. We then report a large, …Read more
  •  74
    Understanding Love: Philosophy, Film, and Fiction (edited book)
    with Susan Wolf
    Oxford University Press. 2014.
    A unique and interdisciplinary collection in which scholars from Philosophy join those from Film Studies, English, and Comparative Literature to explore the nature and limits of love through in-depth reflection on particular works of literature and film
  •  222
    Can Wine Be Beautiful?
    with Douglas Maclean
    The World of Fine Wine 17 120-125. 2007.
  • The Irreplaceability of Persons
    Dissertation, The Johns Hopkins University. 2003.
    Several philosophers have commented on the apparently strange fact that in loving another we tend to value the beloved as irreplaceable. In other words, we are reluctant to "swap" a loved one for another who possesses identical or even superior qualities. Some have gone on to claim that this tendency is in fact irrational. In this dissertation I argue that this natural attitude that we have towards loved ones, where we value them as tokens rather than types, is reasonable and not in need of revi…Read more
  •  706
    "Introduction" for the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love
    In Christopher Grau & Aaron Smuts (eds.), Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love, Oxford University Press. pp. 1-23. forthcoming.
    The Oxford Handbook of the 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 centra…Read more
  •  62
    Understanding Love: Philosophy, Film, & Fiction (edited book)
    with Susan Wolf
    Oxford University Press. 2013.
    This collection of original essays, written by scholars from disciplines across the humanities, addresses a wide range of questions about love through a focus on individual films, novels, plays, and works of philosophy. The essays touch on many varieties of love, including friendship, romantic love, parental love, and even the love of an author for her characters. How do social forces shape the types of love that can flourish and sustain themselves? What is the relationship between love and pass…Read more
  •  6664
    Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind and the morality of memory
    Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 64 (1). 2006.
    In this essay I argue that the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind eloquently and powerfully suggests a controversial philosophical position: that the harm caused by voluntary memory removal cannot be entirely understood in terms of harms that are consciously experienced. I explore this possibility through a discussion of the film that includes consideration of Nagel and Nozick on unexperienced harms, Kant on duties to oneself, and Murdoch on the requirements of morality.
  •  2481
    Moral Status, Speciesism, and Liao’s Genetic Account
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 7 (3): 387-96. 2010.
    This paper offers several criticisms of the account of rightholding laid out in S. Matthew Liao’s recent paper “The Basis of Human Moral Status.” I argue that Liao’s account both does too much and too little: it grants rightholder status to those who may not deserve it, and it does not provide grounds for offering such status to those who arguably do deserve it. Given these troubling aspects of his approach, I encourage Liao to abandon his “physical basis of moral agency” account of moral status…Read more
  •  5113
    A Sensible Speciesism?
    Philosophical Inquiries 4 (1): 49-70. 2016.
    In his essay “The Human Prejudice” Bernard Williams presented a sophisticated defense of the moral relevance of the concept “human being”. Here I offer both an analysis of his essay and a defense of his conclusions against criticisms made by Julian Savulescu and Peter Singer. After a discussion of the structure of Williams’s argument, I focus on several complaints from Savulescu: that Williams underestimates the similarities between speciesism and racism or sexism, that Williams relies on a disp…Read more
  •  958
    Love and history
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 48 (3): 246-271. 2010.
    In this essay, I argue that a proper understanding of the historicity of love requires an appreciation of the irreplaceability of the beloved. I do this through a consideration of ideas that were first put forward by Robert Kraut in “Love De Re” (1986). I also evaluate Amelie Rorty's criticisms of Kraut's thesis in “The Historicity of Psychological Attitudes: Love is Not Love Which Alters Not When It Alteration Finds” (1986). I argue that Rorty fundamentally misunderstands Kraut's Kripkean analo…Read more
  •  1857
    There is no 'I' in 'Robot': Robots and Utilitarianism (expanded & revised)
    In Susan Anderson & Michael Anderson (eds.), Machine Ethics, Cambridge University Press. pp. 451. 2011.
    Utilizing the film I, Robot as a springboard, I here consider the feasibility of robot utilitarians, the moral responsibilities that come with the creation of ethical robots, and the possibility of distinct ethics for robot-robot interaction as opposed to robot-human interaction. (This is a revised and expanded version of an essay that originally appeared in IEEE: Intelligent Systems.).
  •  718
    Attitudes Towards Reference and Replaceability
    with Cynthia L. S. Pury
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 5 (2): 155-168. 2014.
    Robert Kraut has proposed an analogy between valuing a loved one as irreplaceable and the sort of “rigid” attachment that (according to Saul Kripke’s account) occurs with the reference of proper names. We wanted to see if individuals with Kripkean intuitions were indeed more likely to value loved ones (and other persons and things) as irreplaceable. In this empirical study, 162 participants completed an online questionnaire asking them to consider how appropriate it would be to feel the same way…Read more
  •  373
    Love (English version of "L'amour")
    In Julien A. Deonna & Emma Tieffenbach (eds.), Petit Traité des Valeurs, Edition D’ithaque. 2018.
  •  958
    McMahan on Speciesism and Deprivation
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 53 (2): 216-226. 2015.
    Jeff McMahan has long shown himself to be a vigorous and incisive critic of speciesism, and in his essay “Our Fellow Creatures” he has been particularly critical of speciesist arguments that draw inspiration from Wittgenstein. In this essay I consider his arguments against speciesism generally and the species-norm account of deprivation in particular. I argue that McMahan's ethical framework is more nuanced and more open to the incorporation of speciesist intuitions regarding deprivation than he…Read more
  •  416
    This study offers a comprehensive summary and critical discussion of Alice Crary’s Beyond Moral Judgment. While generally sympathetic to her goal of defending the sort of expansive vision of the moral previously championed by Cora Diamond and Iris Murdoch, concerns are raised regarding the potential for her account to provide a satisfactory treatment of both “wide” objectivity and moral disagreement. Drawing on the work of Jonathan Lear and Jonathan Dancy, I suggest possible routes by which her …Read more
  •  1398
    This is the first book to explore and address the philosophical aspects of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Beginning with a helpful introduction that places each essay in context, specially commissioned chapters examine the following topics: * Philosophical issues surrounding love, friendship, affirmation and repetition * The role of memory (and the emotions) in personal identity and decision-making * The morality of imagination and ethical importance of memory * Philosophical questions a…Read more
  •  2112
    Love, Loss, and Identity in Solaris
    In Susan Wolf & Christopher Grau (eds.), Understanding Love: Philosophy, Film, and Fiction, Oxford University Press. 2014.
    The sci-fi premise of the 2002 film Solaris allows director Steven Soderbergh to tell a compelling and distinctly philosophical love story. The “visitors” that appear to the characters in the film present us with a vivid thought experiment, and the film naturally prods us to dwell on the following possibility: If confronted with a duplicate (or near duplicate) of someone you love, what would your response be? What should your response be? The tension raised by such a far-fetched situation reflec…Read more
  •  769
    Philosophers Explore the Matrix (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2005.
    The Matrix trilogy is unique among recent popular films in that it is constructed around important philosophical questions--classic questions which have fascinated philosophers and other thinkers for thousands of years. Editor Christopher Grau here presents a collection of new, intriguing essays about some of the powerful and ancient questions broached by The Matrix and its sequels, written by some of the most prominent and reputable philosophers working today. They provide intelligent, accessib…Read more
  •  9574
    American History X, Cinematic Manipulation, and Moral Conversion
    Midwest Studies in Philosophy 34 (1): 52-76. 2010.
    American History X (hereafter AHX) has been accused by numerous critics of a morally dangerous cinematic seduction: using stylish cinematography, editing, and sound, the film manipulates the viewer through glamorizing an immoral and hate-filled neo-nazi protagonist. In addition, there’s the disturbing fact that the film seems to accomplish this manipulation through methods commonly grouped under the category of “fascist aesthetics.” More specifically, AHX promotes its neo-nazi hero through the…Read more
  •  1043
    Irreplaceability and Unique Value
    Philosophical Topics 32 (1&2): 111-129. 2004.
    This essay begins with a consideration of one way in which animals and persons may be valued as “irreplaceable.” Drawing on both Plato and Pascal, I consider reasons for skepticism regarding the legitimacy of this sort of attachment. While I do not offer a complete defense against such skepticism, I do show that worries here may be overblown due to the conflation of distinct metaphysical and normative concerns. I then go on to clarify what sort of value is at issue in cases of irreplaceable atta…Read more