Washington University in St. Louis
Philosophy/Neuroscience/Psychology Program
PhD, 2014
San Marcos, Texas, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Emotions
Evolution of Morality
Evolution of Cognition
Evolution of Culture
Epistemology of Religion
Religious Diversity
Science and Religion
Evil
Arguments for Theism
Arguments Against Theism
Evolution of Altruism
Evolutionary Epistemology
Sociobiology
Evolutionary Game Theory
Niche Construction
Adaptationism
Homology
Biological Natural Kinds
Developmental Modularity
Innateness
Teleology and Function
Neurophilosophy
Explanation in Neuroscience
Reduction in Cognitive Science
Theory of Mind and Folk Psychology
Psychological Explanation
Cognitivism in Psychology
Social Psychology
Modularity in Cognitive Science
Rationality and Cognitive Science
Nativism in Cognitive Science, Misc
Innate Concepts
Transgender Issues
Gender and Race
Maleness and Masculinity
Implicit Bias
Gender Identity
Gender and Oppression
Science and Gender Equality
Conceptions of Womanhood
Conceptions of Gender
Conceptions of Sex
Race and Class
Race and Culture
Race and Ethnicity
Race and Gender
Race and Science
Whiteness
Moral Cosmopolitanism
Cultural Cosmopolitanism
Racial Identity
Racism
Reparations
Interracial Coalitions
Racial Inequality
Race and Justice
Conceptions of Race
The Nature of Sexual Orientation
Innateness of Sexual Orientation
Marriage, Misc
Monogamy and Non-Monogamy
Relationships and Marriage, Misc
Jealousy
Gay Marriage
Sexual Ethics
Punishment
Self-Consciousness
Human Nature
Transhumanism
Dehumanization
Ethics of Childhood
Parenthood, Misc
Fatherhood
Motherhood
Collective Epistemology
Collective Belief
Collective Action
Desire
The Nature of Action
Motivation and Will
Explanation of Action
Free Will and Science
Theories of Reference
Naturalizing Mental Content
Fact-Value Distinction
Values and Norms
Desert
Ethics and Cognitive Science
Integrity
Wisdom
Moral Reasoning and Motivation
Anger
Disgust
Forgiveness
Gratitude
Guilt and Shame
Moral Intuition
Kindness
Moral Emotion
Classifying Emotions
Emotions and Feelings
Emotions and Appraisals
Emotion and Reason
Emotional Expression
Animal Emotion
Moral Psychology, Misc
Neuroscience
Cognitive Sciences, Misc
Psychology
Anthropology
Economics
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  •  2
    Applied Philosophy of Social Science
    with Ron Mallon
    In Kasper Lippert‐Rasmussen, Kimberley Brownlee & David Coady (eds.), A Companion to Applied Philosophy, Wiley. 2016.
    A traditional social scientific divide concerns the centrality of the interpretation of local understandings as opposed to attending to relatively general factors in understanding human individual and group differences. We consider one of the most common social scientific variables, race, and ask how to conceive of its causal power. We suggest that any plausible attempt to model the causal effects of such constructed social roles will involve close interplay between interpretationist and more ge…Read more
  •  7
    Retribution involves the presumption that acts of punishment are non-instrumentally good, right, fitting, or justified. On this view, punishment need not be organized in relation to some good outcome or purpose (separate from the act itself or its relationship to past wrongdoing) in order to have moral worth of some kind. Wiegman argues that this view has its roots in ancient psychological impulses like anger and vengefulness. He has argued elsewhere that the evolution of these impulses undercut…Read more
  •  6
    Many people feel compelled to disassociate themselves from wrongdoing. We call judgments to the effect “disassociation intuitions.” Do disassociation intuitions have a common cause? Why do they seem so obvious and resistant to countervailing reasons? How did they become so widespread? Here, we argue that disassociation intuitions are a natural product of gene‐culture co‐evolution. We also consider the mechanism that gene‐culture co‐evolution employed to achieve this result, arguing that a plausi…Read more
  •  83
    While there is ongoing debate about the existence of basic emotions and about their status as natural kinds, these debates usually carry on under the assumption that basic emotions are modular and therefore cannot account for behavioral variability in emotional situations. Moreover, both sides of the debate have assumed that these putative features of basic emotions distinguish them as products of evolution rather than products of culture and experience. I argue that these assumptions are unwarr…Read more
  •  64
    Emotional Actions Without Goals
    Erkenntnis 87 (1): 393-423. 2020.
    Recent accounts of emotional action intend to explain such actions without reference to goals. Nevertheless, these accounts fail to specify the difference between goals and other kinds of motivational states. I offer two remedies. First, I develop an account of goals based on Michael Smith’s arguments for the Humean theory of motivation. On this account, a goal is a unified representation that determines behavior selection criteria and satisfaction conditions for an action. This opens the possib…Read more
  •  698
    Payback without bookkeeping: The origins of revenge and retaliation
    Philosophical Psychology 32 (7): 1100-1128. 2019.
    ABSTRACTCurrent evolutionary models of revenge focus on its complex deterrent functions. Nevertheless, there are some retaliatory behaviors in nonhuman animals that do not appear to have a deterren...
  •  769
    Anger and Punishment: Natural History and Normative Significance
    Dissertation, Washington University in St. Louis. 2014.
    I argue that the evolutionary history of anger has substantive implications for normative ethics. In the process, I develop an evolutionary account of anger and its influence on action. First, I consider a prominent argument by Peter Singer and Joshua Greene. They conclude that evolutionary explanations of human cooperation debunk – or undercut the evidential value of – the moral intuitions supporting duty ethics (as opposed to utilitarian or consequentialist ethics). With this argument they aim…Read more
  •  621
    Applied Philosophy of Social Science: The Social Construction of Race
    with Ron Mallon
    In Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen, Kimberley Brownlee & David Coady (eds.), A Companion to Applied Philosophy, Wiley Blackwell. pp. 441-454. 2017.
    A traditional social scientific divide concerns the centrality of the interpretation of local understandings as opposed to attending to relatively general factors in understanding human individual and group differences. We consider one of the most common social scientific variables, race, and ask how to conceive of its causal power. We suggest that any plausible attempt to model the causal effects of such constructed social roles will involve close interplay between interpretationist and more …Read more
  •  80
    Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 69 (274): 217-220. 2019.
    Anger and Forgiveness: Resentment, Generosity, Justice. By Nussbaum Martha.
  •  94
    While there is ongoing debate about the existence of basic emotions and about their status as natural kinds, these debates usually carry on under the assumption that BEs are encapsulated from cognition and that this is one of the criteria that separates the products of evolution from the products of culture and experience. I aim to show that this assumption is entirely unwarranted, that there is empirical evidence against it, and that evolutionary theory itself should not lead us to expect that …Read more
  •  40
    I extend Stanford’s proposal in two ways by focusing on a possible mechanism of externalization: disgust. First, I argue that externalization also has value for solving coordination problems where interests of different groups coincide. Second, Stanford’s proposal also holds promise for explaining why people “over-comply” with norms through disassociation, or the avoidance of actions that merely appear to violate norms.
  •  550
    Disassociation Intuitions
    Southwest Philosophy Review 34 (1): 85-92. 2018.
    We should disassociate ourselves from wrongdoing. If Hobby Lobby is against LGBTQ rights, we shouldn’t shop there. If Old Navy sources their clothing from sweatshops, we shouldn’t buy them. If animals are treated terribly in factory farms, we shouldn’t eat the meat, eggs, and dairy products that come from them. Let’s call these disassociation intuitions. What explains the existence and force of disassociation intuitions? And based on that explanation, are they intuitions worth taking seriously? …Read more
  •  699
    There have been several recent attempts to think about psychological kinds as homologies. Nevertheless, there are serious epistemic challenges for individuating homologous psychological kinds, or cognitive homologies. Some of these challenges are revealed when we look at competing claims of cognitive homology. This paper considers two competing homology claims that compare human anger with putative aggression systems of nonhuman animals. The competition between these hypotheses has been difficul…Read more
  •  54
    While the homology concept has taken on importance in thinking about the nature of psychological kinds, no one has shown how comparative psychological and behavioral evidence can distinguish between competing homology claims. I adapt the operational criteria of homology to accomplish this. I consider two competing homology claims that compare human anger with putative aggression systems of nonhuman animals, and demonstrate the effectiveness of these criteria in adjudicating between these claims.
  •  805
    The Evolution of Retribution: Intuitions Undermined
    Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (2): 490-510. 2017.
    Recent empirical work suggests that emotions are responsible for anti-consequentialist intuitions. For instance, anger places value on actions of revenge and retribution, value not derived from the consequences of these actions. As a result, it contributes to the development of retributive intuitions. I argue that if anger evolved to produce these retributive intuitions because of their biological consequences, then these intuitions are not a good indicator that punishment has value apart from i…Read more