•  375
    The exploitation solution to the Non-Identity Problem
    Philosophical Studies 167 (1): 73-88. 2014.
    When discussing exploitation, we often say things like this, “sweatshop laborers have terrible working conditions and are paid almost nothing, but they are better off with that labor than with no labor.” Similarly, in describing the Non-Identity Problem, Derek Parfit points out: we cannot say that the individuals born in future generations are worse off because of our destructive environmental policies because the particular people living in those future generations wouldn’t even exist if it wer…Read more
  •  250
    The Problem with Sexual Promises
    Ethics 127 (2): 383-414. 2017.
    I first distinguish promises with positive sexual content (e.g., promises to perform sexual acts) and promises with negative sexual content (e.g., promises to refrain from sexual acts—as one does when making monogamy promises). I argue that sexual content—even positive sexual content—does not cause a promise to misfire. However, the content of some successful promises is such that a promisee ought not to accept the promise, and, if she does accept, she ought then to release her promisor from the…Read more
  •  220
    Intention and sexual consent
    Philosophical Explorations 20 (sup2): 127-141. 2017.
    In this paper I first argue that we do not need to intend all the features of X in order to consent to X. I will present cases in which agents intend to consent to gambles, and intend to consent to have sex with people under certain descriptions, de re, rather than de dicto. Next, I argue that deception – even deception about features of a sexual act that qualify as “deal-breakers” for a participant – might not always have the power to undermine sexual consent. In both sections I craft my argume…Read more
  •  195
    Exploitation and the Vulnerability Clause
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 17 (4): 619-629. 2014.
    What conditions of vulnerability must an individual face in order that we might ever correctly say that she or he has been wrongfully exploited? Mikhail Valdman has recently argued that wrongful exploitation is the extraction of excessive benefits from someone who cannot reasonably refuse one’s offer. So, ‘being unable to reasonably refuse an offer’ is Valdman’s answer to this question. I will argue that this answer is too narrow, but that other competing answers, like Alan Wertheimer’s, are too…Read more
  •  171
    Denying the Suberogatory
    Philosophia 40 (2): 395-402. 2012.
    Julia Driver has argued that there is a special set of actions, lodged between neutral actions and wrongful actions called suberogatory actions. These actions are not impermissible, according to Driver, but still strike us as troubling or bad, and are therefore worse than morally neutral (1992). Since this paper was written 20 years ago, many philosophers have utilized or alluded to this moral territory. The existence of some action-types that are not wrong but still carry some dis-value has bec…Read more
  •  160
    Evil, wrongdoing, and concept distinctness
    Philosophical Studies 173 (6): 1591-1602. 2016.
    Philosophers theorizing about ‘evil’ usually distinguish evil actions from acts of ordinary wrongdoing. They either attempt to isolate some quality or set of qualities shared by all evil actions that is not found in other wrongful actions, or they concede that their account of evil is only distinguished by capturing the very worst acts on the scale of moral wrongness. The idea that evil is qualitatively distinct from wrongdoing has recently been under contention. We explore the grounds for this …Read more
  •  119
    Noxious Markets versus Noxious Gift Relationships
    Social Theory and Practice 39 (2): 265-287. 2013.
    I argue that women in traditional marriages are a vulnerable source for kidneys and this vulnerability gives rise to exploitative donation arrangements made within families. In so doing, I critique Alan Wertheimer’s account of the impact that emotional closeness between participants in an agreement has on the wrongfulness of exploitation. I propose a regulated market scheme that is not only less exploitative than our current donation scheme, but also resolves a variety of other moral problems th…Read more
  •  113
    The Moral Specification of Rights: A Restricted Account
    Law and Philosophy 33 (2): 175-206. 2014.
    I begin this paper by summarizing and critiquing the debate between two views: Moral Specificationism about rights and Moral Generalism about rights. I then show how the conceptual framework that Wesley Hohfeld uses to describe legal rights can also clarify the discussion of moral rights, in general, and of moral specification, in particular. Drawing upon Hohfeld’s framework, I argue for the Restricted Account of the moral specification of rights, which stakes out a middle-ground between the vie…Read more
  •  93
    Promises and the Backward Reach of Uptake
    American Philosophical Quarterly 55 (1): 15-26. 2018.
    I present a set of cases that pose problems for existing theories of promissory uptake. These cases involve a delayed receipt and/or acceptance of a promise, though the obligation arises before the receipt or acceptance has taken place; a delay or absence of agency on the part of the promisee—making it impossible to satisfy the various suggested uptake criteria, though promissory obligation is nonetheless generated; and the promise is made to someone, de dicto—that is, the person who will be the…Read more
  •  86
    Coercion, Consent, and the Mechanistic Question
    Ethics 131 (2): 210-245. 2021.
    In this article I examine the most prevalent explanation for why coercion ever undermines consent, an explanation that I call “moral debilitation.” On this view, the manipulative strategy of coerci...
  •  67
    On the Costly Compromises of Nonclinical Research Relationships
    American Journal of Bioethics 10 (7): 41-42. 2010.
    This Article does not have an abstract
  •  43
    Two Ways to Transfer a Bodily Right
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 15 (1): 46-63. 2018.
    _ Source: _Page Count 18 There are two ways to transfer a bodily right. One might transfer a bodily right in a detaching way – that is, without transferring jurisdiction over one’s future bodily choices. Alternately, one might transfer a bodily right in an attaching way – that is, in a way that transfers such jurisdiction. For instance, A might sell his kidney to B for money paid at the time of the transplant. Alternately, A might accept money now, agreeing to give up his kidney some time down t…Read more
  •  30
    Promises, Release‐Seeking, and Exploitation: What We Should Not Do To Get Off the Hook
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 54 (S1): 143-165. 2016.
    I argue here that sometimes the seeking and securing of release from promissory obligation amounts to wrongful exploitation. I contend that this is true even though the promisee has viable alternatives to releasing the promisor from the promise, and even though the promisee is voluntarily releasing the promisor from the promise. I offer two methods by which someone can unfairly take advantage of the promisee's vulnerability that count as wrongfully exploitative. Next, I explain a variety of theo…Read more
  •  28
    Mark Rowlands gives a compelling argument that, if John Rawls's contractarianism is consistently applied, and Rawls's premises fully explained, then we have powerful reasons to believe that representatives behind the Veil of Ignorance should be blind to species membership in the same way that they are blind to economic status and natural talent.1I argue that even if we suppose this to be correct, these agents would not choose the two principles of justice, but instead ones that more closely rese…Read more
  •  23
    Two Ways to Transfer a Bodily Right
    New Content is Available for Journal of Moral Philosophy. forthcoming.
    _ Source: _Page Count 18 There are two ways to transfer a bodily right. One might transfer a bodily right in a detaching way – that is, without transferring jurisdiction over one’s future bodily choices. Alternately, one might transfer a bodily right in an attaching way – that is, in a way that transfers such jurisdiction. For instance, A might sell his kidney to B for money paid at the time of the transplant. Alternately, A might accept money now, agreeing to give up his kidney some time down t…Read more
  •  6
    This book is about permissive consent--the moral tool we use to give another person permission to do what would otherwise be forbidden. For instance, consent to enter my home gives you permission to do what would otherwise be trespass. This transformation is the very thing that philosophersidentify as consent--which is why we call it a normative power. It is something individuals can do, by choice, to change the moral or legal world. But what human acts or attitudes render consent? When do coerc…Read more
  •  6
    Introduction
    Social Theory and Practice 42 (2): 225-227. 2016.