•  275
    Does Schopenhauer accept any positive pleasures?
    European Journal of Philosophy 31 (4): 902-913. 2023.
    Schopenhauer repeatedly claims that all pleasure is negative, and this view seems to play key roles throughout his work. Nonetheless, many scholars have argued that Schopenhauer actually acknowledges certain positive pleasures. Two major arguments have been offered for this reading, one focused on the link between Schopenhauer's view of pleasure and Plato's, and one focused on Schopenhauer's distinction between two components of aesthetic pleasure. I argue that neither way of motivating the posi…Read more
  •  66
    Schopenhauer on boredom
    British Journal for the History of Philosophy 30 (3): 477-495. 2022.
    On the dominant interpretation, Schopenhauer possesses a will to will view of boredom: boredom consists in the dissatisfaction of a second-order desire to pursue objects of first-order desire. I ch...
  •  22
    The Freedom-based Critique of Well-Being’s Exclusive Moral Claim
    Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 22 (4): 647-662. 2021.
    Amartya Sen has suggested that the moral significance of freedom undermines the view that well-being alone possesses fundamental moral worth. Sen’s efforts to establish this claim, however, seem to fall short: he attempts to establish freedom’s independent moral significance by pointing to the value of autonomy, but explains the value of autonomy in terms of its role as an element of well-being. Nonetheless, I take it that Sen is very much on the right track: well-being is not the only fundament…Read more
  •  291
    Two Pessimisms in Mill
    Utilitas 33 (4): 442-457. 2021.
    Mill defines utilitarianism as the combination of a “theory of life” and a moral claim: only pleasure and freedom from pain are desirable as ends, and the promotion of happiness is the sole goal of moral action. So defined, utilitarianism is open to ad hominem pessimistic objection: a “theory of life” which entails the impossibility of happiness fits poorly with a morality centered on its promotion. The first two challenges Mill confronts in Utilitarianism share this pessimistic structure. Inter…Read more
  •  75
    Nietzsche suggests that part of what it is to experience something as beautiful is to experience it as beneficial in the highest degree. He defends this claim by suggesting that it alone captures the experience of beauty typical of artists. I argue that this is best understood as pointing to an explanatory argument: Nietzsche takes his view to make sense of an effect beautiful objects have on artists. This effect is, I suggest, gratitude. Beautiful objects inspire feelings of gratitude within ar…Read more
  •  58
    Complex Wisdom in the Euthydemus
    Apeiron 53 (3): 187-211. 2020.
    In the Euthydemus, Socrates is presented as an eager student of seemingly trivial arts, earning derision both for desiring to master the peculiar art of Euthydemus and Dionysodorus and for studying the harp in his old age. I explain Socrates’ interest in these apparently trivial arts by way of a novel reading of the first protreptic argument, suggesting that the wisdom Socrates praises is complex in nature, securing the happiness of its possessor only insofar as it is composed of both ordinary p…Read more