• Progressive teleology
    Philosophical Studies 172 (11): 2931-2954. 2015.
    I argue for a teleological account of events in progress. Details aside, the proposal is that events in progress are teleological processes. It follows from this proposal that final causes are ubiquitous: anything happening at any time is an event with a telos
  • Refusing Protection
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 51 (1): 33-59. 2022.
    Philosophy &Public Affairs, Volume 51, Issue 1, Page 33-59, Winter 2023.
  • Treating People as Tools
    Philosophy and Public Affairs 44 (2): 133-165. 2016.
  • The Experience Machine
    Philosophy Compass 11 (3): 136-145. 2016.
    In this paper, I reconstruct Robert Nozick's experience machine objection to hedonism about well-being. I then explain and briefly discuss the most important recent criticisms that have been made of it. Finally, I question the conventional wisdom that the experience machine, while it neatly disposes of hedonism, poses no problem for desire-based theories of well-being
  • Well-being occupies a central role in ethics and political philosophy, including in major theories such as utilitarianism. It also extends far beyond philosophy: recent studies into the science and psychology of well-being have propelled the topic to centre stage, and governments spend millions on promoting it. We are encouraged to adopt modes of thinking and behaviour that support individual well-being or 'wellness'. What is well-being? Which theories of well-being are most plausible? In this r…Read more
  • The Neutrality of Life
    Australasian Journal of Philosophy 101 (3): 685-703. 2023.
    Some philosophers think that life is worth living not merely because of the goods and the bads within it, but also because life itself is good. I explain how this idea can be formalized by associating each version of such of a view with a function from length of life to the value generated by life itself. Then I argue that every version of the view that life itself is good faces some version of the following dilemma: either (1) good human lives are worse than very long lives wholly devoid of ple…Read more
  • Collective harm and the inefficacy problem
    Philosophy Compass 14 (4). 2019.
    This paper discusses the inefficacy problem that arises in contexts of “collective harm.‘ These are contexts in which by acting in a certain sort of way, people collectively cause harm, or fail to prevent it, but no individual act of the relevant sort seems to itself make a difference. The inefficacy problem is that if acting in the relevant way won’t make a difference, it’s unclear why it would be wrong. Each individual can argue, “things will be just as bad whether or not I act in this way, so…Read more
  • What Immigrants Owe
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 8 (n/a). 2021.
    Unlike natural-born citizens, many immigrants have agreed to undertake political obligations. Many have sworn oaths of allegiance. Many, when they entered their adopted country, promised to obey the law. This paper is about these agreements. First, it’s about their validity. Do they actually confer political obligations? Second, it’s about their justifiability. Is it permissible to get immigrants to undertake such political obligations? Our answers are ‘usually yes’ and ‘probably not’ respective…Read more
  • The Conscription of Informal Political Representatives
    Journal of Political Philosophy 29 (4): 429-455. 2021.
    Informal political representation—the phenomenon of speaking or acting on behalf of others although one has not been elected or selected to do so by means of a systematized election or selection procedure—plays a crucial role in advancing the interests of groups. Sometimes, those who emerge as informal political representatives (IPRs) do so willingly (voluntary representatives). But, often, people end up being IPRs, either in their private lives or in more public political forums, over their own…Read more
  • Killing and Rescuing: Why Necessity Must Be Rethought
    Philosophical Review 129 (3): 433-463. 2020.
    This article addresses a previously overlooked problem in the ethics of defensive killing. Everyone agrees that defensive killing can only be justified when it is necessary. But necessary for what? That seemingly simple question turns out to be surprisingly difficult to answer. Imagine Attacker is trying to kill Victim, and the only way one could save Victim is by killing Attacker. It would seem that, in such a case, killing is necessary. But now suppose there is some other innocent person, suff…Read more
  • I argue that an agent can be appropriately blamed for failing to assist someone in need, even if her failure to assist is not wrong, and that an agent can be morally required to assist even if assisting is overly costly for her—more costly than what the relevant moral baseline is ordinarily taken to allow. Whether this is the case depends on whether the agent has previously failed to discharge her “prospective duties.” Once these duties are taken into consideration, even apparently moderate acco…Read more