•  14
    Testimony of Oppression and the Limits of Empathy
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1-18. forthcoming.
    Testimony of oppression is testimony that something constitutes or contributes to a form of oppression, such as, for example, “The stranger’s comment was sexist.” Testimony of oppression that is given by members of the relevant oppressed group has the potential to play an important role in fostering a shared understanding of oppression. Yet, it is frequently dismissed out of hand. Against the background of a recent debate on moral testimony, this paper discusses the following question: How shoul…Read more
  •  34
    Democratic Empathy and Affective Polarization
    Social Philosophy Today 39 71-87. 2023.
    Social scientists have observed a sharp rise in affective polar­ization in many societies, particularly the United States. Since it is widely agreed that this poses a threat to democracy, finding solutions to this predicament is essential. One prominent proposal to depolarize the electorate holds that citizens need to exercise their capacities for empathy with the political opposition. However, defenders of the empathy response to affective polarization have yet to fully specify the range of mec…Read more
  •  382
    Although moral relativists often appeal to cases of apparent moral disagreement between members of different communities to motivate their view, accounting for these exchanges as evincing genuine disagreements constitutes a challenge to the coherence of moral relativism. While many moral relativists acknowledge this problem, attempts to solve it so far have been wanting. In response, moral relativists either give up the claim that there can be moral disagreement between members of different comm…Read more
  •  98
    Emotional Gaslighting and Affective Empathy
    International Journal of Philosophical Studies 30 (3): 320-338. 2022.
    Gaslighting is a form of manipulation that undermines a target’s confidence in their own cognitive faculties. Different forms of gaslighting can be distinguished according to whether they undermine a target’s confidence in their emotional reactions, perceptions, memory, or reasoning abilities. I focus on ‘emotional gaslighting’, which undermines a target’s confidence in their emotional reactions and corresponding evaluative judgments. While emotional gaslighting rarely occurs in isolation, it is…Read more
  •  298
    Functionalist Conceptions of Moral Progress and the Plurality of Ways of Life
    In Michael Reder, Alexander Filipovic, Dominik Finkelde & Johannes Wallacher (eds.), Yearbook Practical Philosophy in a Global Perspective 3, Verlag Karl Alber. pp. 50-72. 2019.
    Many prominent conceptions of moral progress implicitly assume that progress must lead to convergence in the moral domain. However, given the actual plurality of ways of life and attendant moral outlooks, there is no reason to assume improvement must lead to uniformity. Moreover, as the entanglement of the Enlightenment discourse of progress with colonialism makes evident, the assumption that progress must lead to convergence can license problematic practical conclusions. Drawing on insights fro…Read more