-
Supererogation and the Limits of ReasonsIn David Heyd (ed.), Handbook of Supererogation, Springer Nature Singapore. pp. 165-180. 2023.
-
Dimensions of ValueNoûs 58 (2): 291-305. 2024.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
-
-
The Rules of Rescue: Cost, Distance, and Effective Altruism, by Theron Pummer (review)Mind. forthcoming.
-
Wronging OneselfJournal of Philosophy 121 (4): 181-207. 2024.When, if ever, do we wrong ourselves? The Self-Other Symmetric answer is: when we do to ourselves what would wrong a consenting other. The standard objection, which has gone unchallenged for decades, is that Symmetry seems to imply that we wrong ourselves in too many cases—where rights are unwaivable, or “self-consent” is lacking. We argue that Symmetry not only survives these would-be counterexamples; it explains and unifies them. The key to Symmetry is not, as critics have supposed, the bizarr…Read more
-
What We Owe to Ourselves: Essays on Rights and SupererogationDissertation, MIT. 2019.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
-
The Paradox of Duties to OneselfAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 98 (4): 691-702. 2020.
-
The Many, the Few, and the Nature of ValueErgo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 9 (4): 70-87. 2022.
-
Supererogation and Conditional ObligationPhilosophical 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
-
Three Paradoxes of SupererogationNoûs 55 (3): 699-716. 2021.
-
Defeaters and DisqualifiersMind 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
APA Eastern Division
Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Normative Ethics |
Areas of Interest
Political Theory |
Science, Logic, and Mathematics |