•  74
    Examines the social aspect of moral agency, building an account of critical engagement that focuses on the transformation of moral attention through communicative exchange, rather than on matters of judgment or on behavioral outcomes.
  •  56
    Critical reactions: Verdicts and virtue (review)
    Journal of Value Inquiry 39 (2): 183-201. 2005.
    Surprisingly few moral theorists have focused deliberate attention on the activity of moral criticism, perhaps presuming that a moral criticism is as justified as any “verdict” expressed in it. I argue first that there are deep difficulties with establishing “summary” verdicts upon an action, and that even if we have an adequate theory with which to reach judgment on one another’s actions, it is unclear how such verdicts are relevant to specific situated critics in practice. Both Kantian and con…Read more
  •  34
    Moral Feedback and Motivation: Revisiting the Undermining Effect
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11 (4): 407-423. 2008.
    Social psychologists have evidence that evaluative feedback on others’ choices sometimes has unwelcome negative effects on hearers’ motivation. Holroyd’s article (Holroyd J. Ethical Theory Moral Pract 10:267–278, 2007) draws attention to one such result, the undermining effect, that should help to challenge moral philosophers’ complacency about blame and praise. The cause for concern is actually greater than she indicates, both because there are multiple kinds of negative effect on hearer motiva…Read more
  • Critical Virtue: Evaluative Moves and the Emergence of Moral Agency
    Dissertation, The University of Connecticut. 2000.
    Moral theories often take the guidance of individual conduct as their central task, and seek to provide grounds for confidence in deliberation. Yet they are inevitably also drawn into justifying our reactions to and interventions in one another's actions. This dissertation takes critical encounters to mark a central aspect of moral life. Yet standard deontological and consequentialist theories fall short of providing conceptual tools adequate for reflection on this aspect, and virtue theory is s…Read more