•  136
    An enduring source of skepticism towards Kant’s practical philosophy is his deep conviction that morality must be understood in terms of universality. Whether we look to Kant’s fundamental moral principle (the Categorical Imperative) or to his fundamental principle of right (the Universal Principle of Right), universality lies at the core of the analyses. A central worry of his critics is that by making universality the bedrock of morality in these ways, Kant fails to appreciate the importance o…Read more
  •  36
    This is a public philosophy piece that explores some questions around heroes, trauma, and wrongdoing.
  •  61
    This is a public philosophy article that aims to make available an idea about abortion from my Sex, Love, and Gender book.
  •  452
    Kant and Arendt on the Challenges of Good Sex and Temptations of Bad Sex
    with Carol Hay
    In Sexual Ethics Handbook, . pp. 73-92. 2022.
    This paper considers why obtaining and sustaining a good sexual life tends to be so challenging and why the temptation to settle for a bad one can be so alluring. We engage these questions by cultivating ideas found in the traditions of feminist philosophy and the philosophy of sex and love in dialogue with the works of two unlikely, canonical bedfellows—Immanuel Kant and Hannah Arendt. We propose that some sources of these challenges and temptations are patterned and manifold in that they invol…Read more
  •  268
    Barbara Herman's "The Moral Habitat" -- Review (review)
    Philosophical Review 132 (2): 309-312. 2023.
  •  64
    This is an anthology that is coming out in Farsi. Table of Contents (in English): 1. (2021). “On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy.” The Cambridge Kant Lexicon, ed. Julian Wuerth, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 691-695. 2. (2010). “Kant and Lying to the Murderer at the Door . . . One More Time: Kant’s Legal Philosophy and Lies to Murderers and Nazis.” The Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 41(4), pp. 403-421. 3. (2006). “Kant and Dependency Relations: Kant on the State’s Righ…Read more
  •  174
    A Kantian Theory of Intersectionality
    In Dignity, Freedom and Justice, Springer. forthcoming.
    Kimberlé Crenshaw arrived at her famous phrase “intersectionality” by carefully thinking through speeches and writings given to us by early Black feminists, such as like Sojourner Truth and Anna J. Cooper. In this paper, I expand on this groundbreaking work in two somewhat surprising ways. First, I bring the ideas of these early Black feminists together with important, related proposals from W.E.B. Du Bois, Karl Marx, Hannah Arendt, and Simone de Beauvoir. Second, I relate these works to central…Read more
  •  90
    Responding to Ann Cahill, Alice MacLachlan, and Jordan Pascoe
    Estudos Kantianos 11 (1): 175-188. 2023.
    This is my AMC response to my critics Ann Cahill, Alice MacLachlan, and Jordan Pascoe in Estudos Kantianos 11(1) 2023.
  •  190
    Kant and the Environment
    Studi Kantiani 35. 2022.
    Published in Studi Kantiani, XXXV: 27-48, 2022. The lack of due attention to the environment in the (Kantian) Western analytic philosophical canon is, this paper starts by arguing, puzzling and disturbing. Exploring reasons why and how philosophy lost its way regarding the environment, as well as the question of how to envision better ideals within a Kantian framework, is the topic of Part 1. I set the stage by drawing on relevant ideas from the work of Hannah Arendt before turning to Kantian sc…Read more
  •  191
    Kantian Autonomy
    Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. 2022.
    Overview over some core themes re: Kantian autonomy.
  •  465
    Kant’s Four Political Conditions: Barbarism, Despotism, Anarchy, and Republic
    Norsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 57 (3-4): 194-207. 2022.
    In Kant’s “Doctrine of Right” there is a philosophical and interpretive puzzle surrounding the translation of a key concept: Gewalt. Should we translate it as “force,” “power,” or “violence”? This raises both general questions in Kant’s legal-political philosophy as well as puzzles regarding Kant’s definitions of “barbarism,” “anarchy,” “despotism,” and “republic” as the four possible political conditions. First, I argue that we have good textual reasons for translating Gewalt as “violence”—a tr…Read more
  •  181
    A Kantian Account of Trauma
    Kantian Review (4): 1-19. 2022.
    In our societies today, the prevalence of serious, untreated trauma means that we cannot reliably expect to receive or give unconditional love, understood as love which functions within a normative framework to protect each and all of us as having dignity. Serious, untreated trauma makes unconditional love, so understood, unreliable because each time the pattern of the psychological damage (trauma) is triggered in the traumatized person, in the wrongdoers, or in the bystanders, their behaviour e…Read more
  •  488
    Towards a Kantian theory of philosophical education and wisdom: With the help of Hannah Arendt
    Journal of Philosophy of Education 55 (6): 1081-1096. 2021.
    Journal of Philosophy of Education, Volume 55, Issue 6, Page 1081-1096, December 2021.
  •  213
    Asha Bhandary's Freedom to Care— A Kantian Care Engagement (review)
    Dialogue 62 (2): 247-260. 2023.
    RésuméCette analyse situe la théorie du soin d'Asha Bhandary, telle que définie dans Freedom to Care, dans l'histoire de la philosophie, note certaines caractéristiques distinctives de la théorie qui font clairement évoluer la tradition de la théorie du soin, et soulève des énigmes et des questions concernant des éléments spécifiques de la théorie. Mes remarques portent principalement sur la première partie du livre et sur les quatre sujets suivants : (1) les racines rawlsiennes de la théorie de…Read more
  •  202
    Kant on Property
    In Andrew Stephenson & Anil Gomes (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Kant, Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
    This paper provides an entrance into central discussions regarding Kant’s account of property. The first section shows how Kant engages and transforms important, related proposals from Hobbes and Locke as well as how the ‘libertarian’ and ‘liberal republican’ interpretive traditions differ in their readings on these points. Since Kantian theories for a long time didn’t focus on Kant’s Doctrine of Right but instead followed Rawls’s lead by developing Kantian theories grounded on Kant’s (meta-) et…Read more
  •  139
    Nozick
    In Cambridge Rawls Lexicon. pp. 561-564. 2015.
    Short lexicon entry on the Rawls-Nozick discussions.
  •  225
    Reply to Critics (Sex, Love, and Gender: A Kantian Theory)
    SGIR Review 4 (1-2): 78-100. 2021.
    hese are replies to my critics at at Society for German Idealism and Romanticism (SGIR) Author-Meets-Critics session, Pacific APA 2021. Published version of the full symposium is available on SGIR Review's homepage.
  •  391
    On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy
    In Julian Wuerth (ed.), The Cambridge Kant Lexicon, Cambridge University Press. pp. 691-695. 2021.
    Lexicon entry on Kant's Essay "On a Supposed Right to Lie from Philanthropy."
  •  435
    Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil
    Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 121 (2): 221-248. 2021.
    Abstract: Kant and Arendt on Barbaric and Totalitarian Evil This paper starts by sketching Kant’s four ideal legal and political conditions—'anarchy,’ ‘despotism,’ ‘republic,’ and ‘barbarism’—before showing their usefulness for analyzing different political forces that may operate in any given society. Contrary to the common tendency in political philosophy to view our societies as either in the so-called ‘state of nature’ (‘anarchy’) or in ‘civil society’ (‘republic’), I propose that we might f…Read more
  •  349
    Kantian Care
    In Amy Baehr & Asha Bhandary (eds.), Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Liberal Political Theory, Routledge. pp. 50-74. 2021.
    How do we care well for a human being: ourselves or another? Non-Kantian scholars rarely identify the philosophy of Kant as a particularly useful resource with which to understand the full complexity of human care. Kant’s philosophy is often taken to presuppose that a philosophical analysis of good human life needs to attend only to how autonomous, rational agents—sprung up like mushrooms out of nowhere, without a childhood, never sick, always independent—ought to act respectfully, and how they …Read more
  •  283
    Kant and Privacy
    In Christopher Yeomans & Ansgar Lyssy (eds.), Kant on Morality, Humanity, and Legality: Practical Dimensions of Normativity, Palgrave-macmillan. pp. 229-252. 2021.
    In this paper I argue for two things. First, many concerns we have regarding privacy—both regarding what things we do and do not want to protect in its name—can be explained through an account of our moral (legal and ethical) rights. Second, to understand a further set of moral (ethical and legal) concerns regarding privacy—especially the temptation to want to intrude on and disrespect others’ privacy and the gravity of such breaches and denials of privacy—we must appreciate the way in which pro…Read more
  •  212
    Locke on Property
    In Jessica Gordon-Roth & Shelley Weinberg (eds.), The Lockean Mind, Routledge. 2021.
    This paper critiques Locke’s account of private property. After sketching its basic principles as well as how contemporary Lockeans have developed them, I argue that this account doesn’t and cannot work philosophically. The main problem is that the account requires the determination of objective value of resources in historical time, but this doesn’t exist. I conclude that the ultimate philosophical failure of this tremendously influential kind of account does not entail that it is valueless. Ra…Read more
  •  122
    Sex, Love, and Gender: A Kantian Theory
    Oxford University Press. 2020.
    Sex, Love, and Gender is the first volume to present a comprehensive philosophical theory that brings together all of Kant's practical philosophy — found across his works on ethics, justice, anthropology, history, and religion — and provide a critique of emotionally healthy and morally permissible sexual, loving, gendered being. By rethinking Kant's work on human nature and making space for sex, love, and gender within his moral accounts of freedom, the book shows how, despite his austere and ev…Read more
  •  574
    Kant and Moral Responsibility for Animals
    In John J. Callanan & Lucy Allais (eds.), Kant and Animals, Oxford University Press. pp. 157-175. 2020.
    Working out a Kantian theory of moral responsibility for animals2 requires the untying of two philosophical and interpretive knots: i.) How to interpret Kant’s claim in the important “episodic” section of the Doctrine of Virtue that we do not have duties “to” animals, since such duties are only “with regard to” animals and “directly to” ourselves; and ii.) How to explain why animals don’t have rights, while human beings who (currently or permanently) don’t have sufficient reason for moral respo…Read more
  •  581
    Lockean Freedom and the Proviso’s Appeal to Scientific Knowledge
    Social Theory and Practice 36 (1): 1-20. 2010.
    I argue in this paper that Locke and contemporary Lockeans underestimate the problems involved in their frequent, implicit assumption that when we apply the proviso we use the latest scientific knowledge of natural resources, technology, and the economy’s operations. Problematic for these theories is that much of the pertinent knowledge used is obtained through particular persons’ labor. If the knowledge obtained through individuals’ labor must be made available to everyone and if particular per…Read more
  •  682
    By setting the focus on issues of dependence and embodiment, feminist work has and continues to radically improve our understanding of Kant’s practical philosophy as one that is not (as it typically has been taken to be) about disembodied abstract rational agents. This paper outlines this positive development in Kant scholarship in recent decades by taking us from Kant’s own comments on women through major developments in Kant scholarship with regard to the related feminist issues. The main aim …Read more
  •  238
    Kant and Sexuality
    In Matthew C. Altman (ed.), The Palgrave Kant Handbook. pp. 331-351. 2017.
    Kant’s comments on sexuality are commonly found to be at best perplexing and at worst extraordinarily unenlightened and morally offensive. In this paper, I start by reconstructing what seems to be Kant’s view on sexuality as well as providing an overview of the main, existing Kantian philosophical responses and alternative proposals to this account. In the last part of the paper, I outline a new Kantian approach to sexuality that overcomes the shortcomings of both Kant’s own and the existing Kan…Read more
  •  1718
    At the heart of Kant’s legal-political philosophy lies a liberal, republican ideal of justice understood in terms of private independence (non-domination) and subjection to public laws securing freedom for all citizens as equals. Given this basic commitment of Kant’s, it is puzzling to many that he does not consider democracy a minimal condition on a legitimate state. In addition, many find Kant ideas of reform or improvement of the historical states we have inherited vague and confusing. The ai…Read more