•  281
    Biological Explanations of Social Inequalities
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 103 (4): 694-719. 2022.
    Inequalities of social goods between gender, racial, or other groups call out for explanation. Such inequalities might be explained by socialization and discrimination. But historically some have attributed these inequalities to biological differences between social groups. Such explanations are highly controversial: on the one hand, they have a very troubling racist and sexist history, but on the other hand, they are empirical claims, and so it seems inappropriate to rule them out a priori. I p…Read more
  •  1763
    The deep error of political libertarianism: self-ownership, choice, and what’s really valuable in life
    Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 23 (6): 683-705. 2020.
    Contemporary versions of natural rights libertarianism trace their locus classicus to Robert Nozick’s Anarchy, State, and Utopia. But although there have been many criticisms of the version of political libertarianism put forward by Nozick, many of these fail objections to meet basic methodological desiderata. Thus, Nozick’s libertarianism deserves to be re-examined. In this paper I develop a new argument which meets these desiderata. Specifically, I argue that the libertarian conception of self…Read more
  •  840
    Privilege: What Is It, Who Has It, and What Should We Do About It?
    In Bob Fischer (ed.), Ethics: Left and Right, Oxford University Press. pp. 457-464. 2020.
    Discussions of “privilege” have become increasingly common, but it’s often unclear what exactly people mean by “privilege.” Even well-known writings about privilege rarely take the time to define the word and explain what it means. The confusion this creates is one reason why debates about privilege are often contentious and unproductive. This essay aims to demystify privilege, presupposing no prior knowledge of philosophy. With a clear definition, it is easier to discuss some of the main debate…Read more
  •  46
    The Study of Moral Revolutions as Naturalized Moral Epistemology
    Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 5 (2). 2019.
    I argue for the merits of studying historical moral revolutions to inform moral and political philosophy. Such a research program is not merely of empirical, historical interest but has normative implications. To explain why, I situate the proposal in the tradition of naturalized epistemology. As Alison M. Jaggar and other scholars have argued, a naturalistic approach is characteristic of much feminist philosophy. Accordingly, I argue that the study of moral revolutions would be especially fruit…Read more
  •  216
    A Colony In A Nation (review)
    Racial and Ethnic Studies 41 (8): 1513-1515. 2018.
  •  81
    The Experience Machine Objection to Desire Satisfactionism
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 3 (2): 247-263. 2017.
    It is widely held that the Experience Machine is the basis of a serious objection to Hedonistic theories of welfare. It is also widely held that Desire Satisfactionist theories of welfare can readily avoid problems stemming from the Experience Machine. But in this paper, we argue that if the Experience Machine poses a serious problem for Hedonism, it also poses a serious problem for Desire Satisfactionism. We raise two objections to Desire Satisfactionism, each of which relies on the Experience …Read more
  •  342
    In the past few decades there has been rapid progress in cognitive science with respect to how people learn. Indeed, it can be difficult to keep up with all of the recent findings, and it is sometimes unclear how these findings should influence day-to-day teaching in the philosophy classroom. But one simple way to use the insights of cognitive science in the philosophy classroom is to begin each class with a five-minute recap of the previous few lessons. Cognitive science suggests that such a pr…Read more
  •  65
    This paper is a teaching tool which instructors of animal ethics may assign to students to help them evaluate those students’ most frequent arguments for the moral acceptability of eating meat. Specifically, the paper examines the arguments that eating meat is morally acceptable because it is historically widespread, necessary, and natural. The aim of discussing these arguments is to pave the way for a more fruitful and focused discussion of the canonical texts of the animal ethics literature.