-
12Understanding First: A Psychoanalytic Take on Self-ConstitutionPhilosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 30 (3): 195-204. 2023.In this paper, we criticize what we dub the “pruning view” of self-constitution, championed widely by philosophers, mainly though not exclusively in the Kantian tradition, and instead defend an alternative view inspired by psychoanalysis. We argue that normative assessment comes much too early on the pruning view, so early that it interferes with achieving deeper self-understanding that can produce lasting change. On the proposal we advocate, self-constitution must begin with a non-moralizing at…Read more
-
14Could Understanding Harm?Philosophy Psychiatry and Psychology 30 (3): 211-214. 2023.In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Could Understanding Harm?Iskra Fileva, PhD (bio) and Linda A.W. Brakel, MD (bio)We would like to thank the editors for organizing this symposium and our commentators—Marga Reimer and James Phillips—for the thought-provoking feedback. Although we had thought about the ideas we discuss from many different angles, our commentators raised several interesting issues we had not considered. We are grateful for the opportunity to continue th…Read more
-
30Virtue in a time of depraved idealsInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.Aristotle owned slaves and held racist and misogynist views. If anyone today engaged in the same practices or held Aristotle’s views, that person would be judged harshly. However, we do not judge Aristotle particularly harshly. Should we? What standard of virtue ought we apply in judging the characters of people who lived in remote times and places? This is the question I discuss in this paper. I consider and reject several alternatives and then propose a new one.
-
28Character Trouble: Undisciplined Essays on Moral Agency and PersonalityPhilosophical Psychology 1-7. forthcoming.
-
30What Do Experts Know?Social Philosophy and Policy 38 (2): 72-90. 2021.Reasonable people agree that whenever possible, we ought to rely on experts to tell us what is true or what the best course of action is. But which experts should we rely on and with regard to what issues? Here, I discuss several dangers that accompany reliance on experts, the most important one of which is this: positions that are offered as expert opinion frequently contain elements outside an expert’s domain of expertise, for instance, values not intrinsic to the given domain. I also talk abo…Read more
-
321My Delicate Taste: Aesthetic Deference RevisitedPhilosophers' Imprint 23 (n/a). 2023.Pessimists about aesthetic testimony argue that it is inappropriate to rely on other people’s aesthetic judgments in forming our own aesthetic beliefs. Some suggest that such reliance violates an epistemic norm, others that it violates a non-epistemic norm. In making their case, pessimists offer several arguments. They also put forward cases meant to elicit pessimist intuitions. In this paper, I claim that none of the main pessimist arguments succeeds against a plausible version of optimism, tha…Read more
-
75Questions of Character (edited book)Oxford University Press USA. 2016.This collection features 26 new essays on character from first-rate scholars in philosophy, psychology, economics, and law. The essays are elegantly written and combine forceful argumentation with original ideas on a wide range of questions, such as: "Is Aristotle's theory of character a moral theory?," "Are character traits in tension with personal autonomy," "How do traits differ from mental disorders?," "What is the role of gossip in character attribution?," and "Can businessmen be virtuous?"…Read more
-
6Carla Carmona, Jerrold Levinson (ed. by), Aesthetics, Literature, and Life: Essays in Honor of Jean-Pierre Cometti, Mimesis International, Milan 2019, 220 pp (review)Aisthesis: Pratiche, Linguaggi E Saperi Dell’Estetico 12 (2): 199-203. 2019.
-
29The optionality of supererogatory acts is just what you think it is: a reply to BennPhilosophical Studies 179 (7): 2155-2166. 2021.As standardly understood, for an act to be optional is for it to be permissible but not required. Supererogatory acts are commonly taken to be optional in this way. In “Supererogation, Optionality and Cost”, Claire Benn rejects this common view: she argues that optionality so understood—permissible but not required—cannot be the sort of optionality involved in supererogation. As an alternative, she offers a novel account of the optionality of supererogatory acts: the “comparative cost” account. …Read more
-
110Moral Testimony and Collective Moral GovernanceAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (3): 722-735. 2023.1. If you tell me that it’s raining outside, I would, presumably, be justified in acquiring the belief that it is raining on the basis of your say-so.1 But if you tell me that some war is unjust or...
-
49A State of BesirePhilosophia 49 (5): 1973-1979. 2021.I argue that there is at least one genuine state of besire.
-
94You Disgust Me. Or Do You? On the Very Idea of Moral DisgustAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 99 (1): 19-33. 2021.ABSTRACT It has been argued that so-called moral disgust is either not really moral or not really disgust. I maintain that sceptics are wrong: there is a distinct emotional response best described as ‘moral disgust’. I offer an account of its constitutive features.
-
168The Gender PuzzlesEuropean Journal of Philosophy 29 (1): 182-198. 2021.What is gender and how do we know what our gender is? These are the questions I propose to answer here. I review and reject several hypotheses: gender as sex or—a more careful version of the view—as subjective experiences that arise from sexual characteristics; gender as brain configuration; and gender as a historical kind. I express sympathy with an existentialist conception of gender but argue that such a conception, even according to its proponents, cannot help solve the problems of what gend…Read more
-
384Envy's Non-Innocent VictimsJournal of Philosophy of Emotion 1 (1): 1-22. 2019.Envy has often been seen as a vice and the envied as its victims. I suggest that this plausible view has an important limitation: the envied sometimes actively try to provoke envy. They may, thus, be non-innocent victims. Having argued for this thesis, I draw some practical implications.
-
170Ema Sullivan-Bissett, Helen Bradley, and Paul Noordhof, eds., Art and Belief (Oxford, UL: Oxford University Press, 2017) (review)Journal of Value Inquiry 54 (4): 653-661. 2020.
-
273Communicability Of Pleasure And Normativity Of Taste In Kant’s Third CritiquePostgraduate Journal of Aesthetics 4 (2): 11-18. 2007.Do claims of taste function as validity claims? Our ordinary use of aesthetic notions suggests as much. When I assert that Rodin’s Camille Claudel is ‘beautiful’ I mean my claim to be, in a sense, correct. I expect others to concur and if they do not I think that they are mistaken. But am I justified in attributing an error to the judgment of someone who, unlike me, does not find Rodin’s Camille Claudel beautiful? Not obviously. For it looks, on the other hand, that my assertion “The sculpture o…Read more
-
42Historical Inaccuracy in FictionAmerican Philosophical Quarterly 56 (2): 155-170. 2019.I ask whether and when historical inaccuracy in a work of art constitutes an aesthetic flaw. I first consider a few replies derived from others: conceptual impossibility, import-export inconsistency, failure of reference, and imaginative resistance. I argue that while there is a grain of truth to some of these proposals, none of them ultimately succeeds. I proceed to offer an alternative account on which the aesthetic demerits of historical inaccuracies stem from a violation of the conversationa…Read more
-
317Metaethics and Mental Time Travel: a Reply to Gerrans and KennettPhilosophia 47 (5): 1457-1474. 2019.In “Neurosentimentalism and Moral Agency”, Philip Gerrans and Jeanette Kennett argue that prominent versions of metaethical sentimentalism and moral realism ignore the importance, for moral agency and moral judgment, of the capacity to experientially project oneself into the past and possible futures – to engage in ‘mental time travel’. They contend that such views are committed to taking subjects with impaired capacities for MTT to be moral judgers, and thus confront a dilemma: either allow tha…Read more
-
378What Does Belief Have to Do with Truth?Philosophy 93 (4): 557-570. 2018.I argue that the widely-held view that belief aims at the truth is false. I acknowledge that there is an important connection between truth and belief but propose a new way of interpreting that connection. On the account I put forth, evidence of truth constrains belief without furnishing an aim for belief.
-
60Inner Virtue, by Nicolas Bommarito (review)Mind 127 (507): 902-911. 2018.© Mind AssociationThis article is published and distributed under the terms of the Oxford University Press, Standard Journals Publication Model...Suppose I told you that the person you consider your best friend often dwells on your faults in his own mind; while he behaves in a warm and affectionate manner when the two of you are together, privately, he ruminates on his advantages over you. He likes to compare himself to you because he finds the comparisons flattering. He does not see you as his …Read more
-
710Just Another Article on Moore’s Paradox, But We Don’t Believe ThatSynthese 196 (12): 5153-5167. 2019.We present counterexamples to the widespread assumption that Moorean sentences cannot be rationally asserted. We then explain why Moorean assertions of the sort we discuss do not incur the irrationality charge. Our argument involves an appeal to the dual-process theory of the mind and a contrast between the conditions for ascribing beliefs to oneself and the conditions for making assertions about independently existing states of affairs. We conclude by contrasting beliefs of the sort we discuss …Read more
-
356Can Character Traits Be Based on Brute Psychological Facts?Ratio 31 (2): 233-251. 2018.Some of our largely unchosen first-order reactions, such as disgust, can underwrite morally-laden character traits. This observation is in tension with the plausible idea that virtues and vices are based on reasons. I propose a way to resolve the tension.
-
89Playing with Fire: Art and the Seductive Power of PainIn Jerrold Levinson (ed.), Suffering Art Gladly: The Paradox of Negative Emotions in Art, Palgrave Macmillan. 2013.I discuss the aesthetic power of painful art. I focus on artworks that occasion pain by “hitting too close to home,” i.e., by presenting narratives meant to be “about us.” I consider various reasons why such works may have aesthetic value for us, but I argue that the main reason has to do with the power of such works to transgress conversational boundaries. The discussion is meant as a contribution to the debate on the paradox of tragedy.
-
4Kieran Setiya, reasons without rationalism (review)Journal of Value Inquiry 43 (4): 521-530. 2009.
-
334The Duties of an ArtistFilm and Philosophy 21 137-59. 2016.Casting directors are tasked with selecting a suitable actor for a given role. “Suitable” in this context typically means possessing a combination of physical attributes and acting skills. But are there any moral constraints on the choice? I argue that there are. This is an uncommon supposition, and few even entertain the question. In this essay, I discuss the reasons for this omission and attempt to make up for it.
-
7The Neutrality of Rightness and the Indexicality of Goodness: Beyond Objectivity and Back AgainRatio 21 (3): 273-285. 2008.My purpose in the present paper is two-fold: to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the difference between rightness and virtue; and to systematically account for the role of objective rightness in an individual person's decision making. I argue that a decision to do something virtuous differs from a decision to do what's right not simply, as is often supposed, in being motivated differently but, rather, in being taken from a different point of view. My argument to that effect is t…Read more
-
560Two Senses of "Why": Traits and Reasons in the Explanation of ActionIn Questions of Character, Oxford University Press. pp. 182-202. 2016.I discuss the respective roles of traits and reasons in the explanation of action. I begin by noting that traits and reasons explanations are systematically connected: traits explanations require motivation by reasons. Actions due to psychiatric conditions such as mental disorders cannot be explained by an appeal to traits. Because traits require motivation by reasons, it is often possible to explain one and the same action by an appeal to either the agent's traits or to her reasons. I then ask…Read more
-
70T. Schelling. Strategies of Commitment and Other Essays (review)Journal of Value Inquiry 46 (4): 485-490. 2012.
-
87A Puzzle About Knowledge in ActionLogique Et Analyse 56 (223): 287-301. 2013.I question the widespread assumption that when we act for reasons we know what our reasons are. I argue that an agent may act in ignorance, or partial ignorance, regarding his or her reasons, and an action involving ignorance of this sort may still qualify as done for reasons. I conclude from here that we need to develop a suitable new model of action for reasons, and I proceed to offer such a model. Briefly, I argue that an action qualifies as done for reasons when the agent performing that act…Read more
Boulder, Colorado, United States of America
Areas of Specialization
Moral Psychology |
Moral Emotion |
Aesthetics |
Epistemology |
Areas of Interest
Moral Psychology |
Moral Emotion |
Aesthetics |
Epistemology |