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The Value of AchievementsPacific Philosophical Quarterly 94 (2): 204-224. 2013.This article gives an account of what makes achievements valuable. Although the natural thought is that achievements are valuable because of the product, such as a cure for cancer or a work of art, I argue that the value of the product of an achievement is not sufficient to account for its overall value. Rather, I argue that achievements are valuable in virtue of their difficulty. I propose a new perfectionist theory of value that acknowledges the will as a characteristic human capacity, and thu…Read more
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Perfectionist BadsPhilosophical Quarterly 71 (3): 586-604. 2021.Pain, failure and false beliefs all make a life worse, or so it is plausible to think. These things and possibly others seem to be intrinsically bad—no matter what further good comes of them they make a life worse pro tanto. In spite of the obvious badness, this is difficult to explain. While there are many accounts of well-being, few are up to the challenge of a univocal explanation of ill-being. Perfectionism has particular difficulty. Otherwise, it is a theory that has quite a lot in its favo…Read more
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AchievementOxford University Press. 2015.
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The badness of painUtilitas 32 (2): 236-252. 2020.Why is pain bad? The most straightforward theory of pain's badness,dolorism, appeals to the phenomenal quality of displeasure. In spite of its explanatory appeal, the view is too straightforward to capture two central puzzles, namely pain that is enjoyed and pain that is not painful. These cases can be captured byconditionalism, which makes the badness of displeasure conditional on an agent's attitude. But conditionalism fails where dolorism succeeds with explanatory appeal. A new approach is pr…Read more
APA Central Division
Houston, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Value |
Well-Being |
Normative Ethics |
The Value of Phenomena |
PhilPapers Editorships
Value Theory, Miscellaneous |
Perfectionist Accounts of Well-Being |