•  296
    Coleman Hughes argues for a "colorblind" approach to morality and policy: we should try to treat people without regard to race. I argue that colorblindness is less feasible, and less desirable, than it sounds. Hughes conceives of race as being skin-deep, not the sort of thing one should care about. But in American politics, "races" are often really ethnic groups, defined by a shared culture and history -- two things that we might reasonably care about. A colorblind ethos asks ethnic minorities n…Read more
  •  1194
    So you want to publish some philosophy—preferably, good philosophy in a nice journal. How do you do it?
  •  461
    Supererogation and the Limits of Reasons
    In David Heyd (ed.), Handbook of Supererogation, Springer Nature Singapore. pp. 165-180. 2023.
    We argue that supererogation cannot be understood just in terms of reasons for action. In addition to reasons, a theory of supererogation must include prerogatives, which can make an action permissible without counting in favor of doing it.
  •  16
    Sources of transitivity – CORRIGENDUM
    Economics and Philosophy 39 (2): 307-307. 2023.
  •  902
    Dimensions of Value
    Noûs. forthcoming.
    Value pluralists believe in multiple dimensions of value. What does betterness along a dimension have to do with being better overall? Any systematic answer begins with the Strong Pareto principle: one thing is overall better than another if it is better along one dimension and at least as good along all others. We defend Strong Pareto from recent counterexamples and use our discussion to develop a novel view of dimensions of value, one which puts Strong Pareto on firmer footing. We conclude by …Read more
  •  385
    A glowing review, with a few objections at the end.
  •  1317
    Wronging Oneself
    Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    It's like wronging a consenting other.
  •  498
    Sources of transitivity
    Economics and Philosophy 39 (2): 285-306. 2023.
    Why should ‘better than’ be transitive? The leading answer in ethics is that values do not change with context. But this cannot be the entire source of transitivity, I argue, since transitivity can fail even if values never change, so long as they are complex, with multiple dimensions combined non-additively. I conclude by exploring a new hypothesis: that all alleged cases of nontransitive betterness, such as Parfit’s Repugnant Conclusion, can and should be modelled as the result of complexity, …Read more
  •  1417
    Supererogation and Conditional Obligation
    Philosophical Studies 179 (5). 2022.
    There are plenty of classic paradoxes about conditional obligations, like the duty to be gentle if one is to murder, and about “supererogatory” deeds beyond the call of duty. But little has been said about the intersection of these topics. We develop the first general account of conditional supererogation, with the power to solve familiar puzzles as well as several that we introduce. Our account, moreover, flows from two familiar ideas: that conditionals restrict quantification and that superero…Read more
  •  948
    The Many, the Few, and the Nature of Value
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9 (4): 70-87. 2022.
    John Taurek argues that, in a choice between saving the many or the few, the numbers should not count. Some object that this view clashes with the transitivity of ‘better than’; others insist the clash can be avoided. I defend a middle ground: Taurek cannot have transitivity, but that doesn’t doom his view, given a suitable conception of value. I then formalize and explore two conceptions: one context-sensitive, one multidimensional.
  •  1396
    Exploitation and Effective Altruism
    Politics, Philosophy and Economics 20 (4): 409-423. 2021.
    How could it be wrong to exploit—say, by paying sweatshop wages—if the exploited party benefits? How could it be wrong to do something gratuitously bad—like giving to a wasteful charity—if that is better than permissibly doing nothing? Joe Horton argues that these puzzles, known as the Exploitation Problem and All or Nothing Problem, have no unified answer. I propose one and pose a challenge for Horton’s take on the Exploitation Problem.
  •  928
    Infinite options, intransitive value, and supererogation
    Philosophical Studies 178 (6): 2063-2075. 2020.
    Supererogatory acts are those that lie “beyond the call of duty.” There are two standard ways to define this idea more precisely. Although the definitions are often seen as equivalent, I argue that they can diverge when options are infinite, or when there are cycles of better options; moreover, each definition is acceptable in only one case. I consider two ways out of this dilemma.
  •  1959
    The Rejection of Consequentializing
    Journal of Philosophy 118 (2): 79-96. 2021.
    Consequentialists say we may always promote the good. Deontologists object: not if that means killing one to save five. “Consequentializers” reply: this act is wrong, but it is not for the best, since killing is worse than letting die. I argue that this reply undercuts the “compellingness” of consequentialism, which comes from an outcome-based view of action that collapses the distinction between killing and letting die.
  •  1500
    Knowledge of Objective 'Oughts': Monotonicity and the New Miners Puzzle
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 103 (1): 77-91. 2021.
    In the classic Miners case, an agent subjectively ought to do what they know is objectively wrong. This case shows that the subjective and objective ‘oughts’ are somewhat independent. But there remains a powerful intuition that the guidance of objective ‘oughts’ is more authoritative—so long as we know what they tell us. We argue that this intuition must be given up in light of a monotonicity principle, which undercuts the rationale for saying that objective ‘oughts’ are an authoritative guide f…Read more
  •  1292
    From rights to prerogatives
    Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 102 (3): 608-623. 2020.
    Deontologists believe in two key exceptions to the duty to promote the good: restrictions forbid us from harming others, and prerogatives permit us not to harm ourselves. How are restrictions and prerogatives related? A promising answer is that they share a source in rights. I argue that prerogatives cannot be grounded in familiar kinds of rights, only in something much stranger: waivable rights against oneself.
  •  907
    The Paradox of Duties to Oneself
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (4): 691-702. 2020.
    Philosophers have long argued that duties to oneself are paradoxical, as they seem to entail an incoherent power to release oneself from obligations. I argue that self-release is possible, both as a matter of deontic logic and of metaethics.
  •  2220
    Three Paradoxes of Supererogation
    Noûs 55 (3): 699-716. 2021.
    Supererogatory acts—good deeds “beyond the call of duty”—are a part of moral common sense, but conceptually puzzling. I propose a unified solution to three of the most infamous puzzles: the classic Paradox of Supererogation (if it’s so good, why isn’t it just obligatory?), Horton’s All or Nothing Problem, and Kamm’s Intransitivity Paradox. I conclude that supererogation makes sense if, and only if, the grounds of rightness are multi-dimensional and comparative.
  •  1055
    Grounding nonexistence
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 63 (2): 209-229. 2020.
    Contingent negative existentials give rise to a notorious paradox. I formulate a version in terms of metaphysical grounding: nonexistence can't be fundamental, but nothing can ground it. I then argue for a new kind of solution, expanding on work by Kit Fine. The key idea is that negative existentials are contingently zero-grounded – that is to say, they are grounded, but not by anything, and only in the right conditions. If this is correct, it follows that grounding cannot be an internal relatio…Read more
  •  1644
    Some sacrifices—like giving a kidney or heroically dashing into a burning building—are supererogatory: they are good deeds beyond the call of duty. But if such deeds are really so good, philosophers ask, why shouldn’t morality just require them? The standard answer is that morality recognizes a special role for the pursuit of self-interest, so that everyone may treat themselves as if they were uniquely important. This idea, however, cannot be reconciled with the compelling picture of morality as…Read more
  •  173
    Morality doesn't always require our best. Prudent acts and heroic sacrifices are optional, not obligatory. To explain this, some philosophers claim that reasons of self-interest must have a special "non-moral" significance. A better explanation, I argue, is that we have prerogatives based in rights.
  •  824
    Defeaters and Disqualifiers
    Mind 128 (511): 887-906. 2019.
    Justification depends on context: even if E on its own justifies H, still it might fail to justify in the context of D. This sort of effect, epistemologists think, is due to defeaters, which undermine or rebut a would-be justifier. I argue that there is another fundamental sort of contextual feature, disqualification, which doesn't involve rebuttal or undercutting, and which cannot be reduced to any notion of screening-off. A disqualifier makes some would-be justifier otiose, as direct testimony…Read more
  •  121
    Not Knowing Everything That Matters
    The Philosophers' Magazine (66): 94-99. 2014.
    We know what to say about the agent who knowingly does the wrong thing. But what of the wrongdoer who doesn't know everything that matters? Some of the usual criticisms may apply, if some of the usual mistakes were made. Other usual criticisms will miss the mark. One task for moral theory is to explain this variety of censures and failures. Derek Parfit proposes that we define for each criticism a sense of 'wrong', and that each new sense be defined in terms of the 'ordinary' sense. The authors …Read more
  •  670
    Thinking, Acting, Considering
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96 (2): 255-270. 2018.
    According to a familiar (alleged) requirement on practical reason, one must believe a proposition if one is to take it for granted in reasoning about what to do. This paper explores a related requirement, not on thinking but on acting—that one must accept a goal if one is to count as acting for its sake. This is the acceptance requirement. Although it is endorsed by writers as diverse as Christine Korsgaard, Donald Davidson, and Talbot Brewer, I argue that it is vulnerable to counterexamples, in…Read more