•  11
    Is Cool a Virtue?
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 28 (1): 87-112. 2022.
    This paper argues that cool is a virtue in a specific context: that of black Americans living under a specific modality of white supremacy. But cool is not merely a coping mechanism. A historical analysis of the term shows that cool is being unimpressed by, and calm in the face of, white supremacy. This is made manifest in a style, the “cool pose,” the sophistication of which is captured in the jazz of Lester Young and Miles Davis. Thus, cool is both a virtue of character and a feature of black …Read more
  •  18
    Whataboutery
    International Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2): 243-254. 2020.
    A person points to a situation, A, and says that A is morally repugnant; A ought to be condemned; we should do something about A. In response, another person says, “Well, what about B? B is analogous to A in that it is equally morally repugnant. If we ought to condemn and do something about A then we should also condemn and do something about B.” This “what about” response is an argumentative strategy, sometimes called “whataboutery” or “whataboutism.” In popular discussion, whataboutery is cond…Read more
  •  56
    Whataboutery
    International Journal of Applied Philosophy 34 (2): 243-254. 2020.
    A person points to a situation, A, and says that A is morally repugnant; A ought to be condemned; we should do something about A. In response, another person says, “Well, what about B? B is analogous to A in that it is equally morally repugnant. If we ought to condemn and do something about A then we should also condemn and do something about B.” This “what about” response is an argumentative strategy, sometimes called “whataboutery” or “whataboutism.” In popular discussion, whataboutery is cond…Read more
  •  49
    Can we wrong a work of art?
    Evental Aesthetics 4 (2): 116-137. 2015.
    If we can wrong a work of art, then it has moral status. This paper considers two examples of putative wrongings of works of art, but in both cases, the claim that the work of art itself is wronged cannot be vindicated. The sense that a work of art has been wronged arises when that work has a special meaning for us or has a special standing in a cultural context. There is nothing intrinsic to works of art that can confer moral status upon them, and so they are not moral patients.
  •  133
    Happiness Proportioned to Virtue: Kant and the Highest Good
    Kantian Review 17 (2): 257-279. 2012.
    This paper considers two contenders for the title of highest good in Kant's theory of practical reason: happiness proportioned to virtue and the maximization of happiness and virtue. I defend the against criticisms made by Andrews Reath and others, and show how it resolves a dualism between prudential and moral practical reasoning. By distinguishing between the highest good as a principle of evaluation and an object of agency, I conclude that the maximization of happiness and virtue is a corolla…Read more
  •  38
    Kantian Moral Retributivism: Punishment, Suffering, and the Highest Good
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 52 (4): 477-495. 2014.
    Against the view of some contemporary Kantians who wish to downplay Kant's retributivist commitments, I argue that Kant's theory of practical of reason implies a retributive conception of punishment. I trace this view to Kant's distinction between morality and well-being and his attempt to synthesize these two concerns in the idea of the highest good. Well-being is morally valuable only insofar as it is proportional to virtue, and the suffering inflicted on wrongdoers as punishment for wrongdoin…Read more