•  191
    Despair
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.
    Since Case and Deaton (2015) coined the term ‘deaths of despair,’ there has been significant empirical work and public interest in the topic. Yet social scientists studying this topic lament the absence of a clear theory of despair. Philosophical inquiry into the nature and value of hope has begun to fill this gap, with despair often cited as the opposite of hope. The assumption that hope and despair are opposites has helped to motivate two central tasks in the literature: how a theory of hope c…Read more
  •  105
    Comments on Darrel Moellendorf, Mobilizing Hope
    Environmental Ethics 46 (2): 199-204. 2024.
  •  619
    (Why) Do We Need a Theory of Affective Injustice
    Philosophical Topics 51 (1): 113-134. 2024.
    Philosophers have started to theorize the concept of ‘affective injustice’ to make sense of certain ways in which people’s affective lives are significantly marked by injustice. This new research has offered important insights into people’s lived experiences under oppression. But it is not immediately clear how the concept ‘affective injustice’ picks out something different from the closely related phenomenon of ‘psychological oppression.’ This paper considers the question of why we might need n…Read more
  •  138
    Weapon and Shield
    Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 9 (3). 2023.
    Apologies are an important part of moral life and a method by which someone can satisfy their reparative obligations. At the same time, apologies can be used both as a shield to protect the person apologizing and as a weapon against the person to whom the apology is owed. In this paper we unpack both claims. We defend two principles one should employ to try to avoid such bad outcomes: (1) Apologies must be one-sided and nontransactional, and (2) the wrongdoer must be willing to pay what they owe…Read more
  •  31
    Correction to: How Can Hope Be Rational in the Context of Global Poverty?
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 26 (2): 337-337. 2023.
  •  61
    How Can Hope Be Rational in the Context of Global Poverty?
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 26 (3): 425-430. 2023.
    This paper is a critical discussion of Claudia Blöser’s (2022) “Global Poverty and Kantian Hope.” While Blöser shows that a lack of hope is often rational in the context of global poverty, I argue that some people’s hopes in the face of poverty might actually be rational, and that understanding the rationality of a person’s hope may require knowing more about the unique circumstances of their lives. I suggest that Blöser’s work on ‘fundamental hopes’ (with Titus Stahl) (2017) may be key to under…Read more
  •  511
    Collective Forgiveness
    In Robert Enright & Glen Pettigrove (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Forgiveness, Routledge. 2023.
    This chapter considers the possibility and ethics of collective forgiveness. I begin by distinguishing between different forms of forgiveness to illustrate what it might look like for a collective to forgive that is distinct from the individual and group-based forgiveness of its members. I then consider how emotional models of forgiveness might capture the phenomenon of collective forgiveness. I argue that shortcomings with emotional models suggest that performative and social practice models of…Read more
  •  69
    Controlling hope
    Ratio 34 (4): 345-354. 2021.
    Ratio, Volume 34, Issue 4, Page 345-354, December 2021.
  •  674
    Moral Shock
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 8 (3): 496-511. 2022.
    This paper defends an account of moral shock as an emotional response to intensely bewildering events that are also of moral significance. This theory stands in contrast to the common view that shock is a form of intense surprise. On the standard model of surprise, surprise is an emotional response to events that violated one's expectations. But I show that we can be morally shocked by events that confirm our expectations. What makes an event shocking is not that it violated one's expectations, …Read more
  •  54
    Hope Under Oppression
    Oxford University Press. 2021.
    This book explores the nature, value, and role of hope in human life under conditions of oppression. Oppression is often a threat and damage to hope, yet many members of oppressed groups, including prominent activists pursuing a more just world, find hope valuable and even essential to their personal and political lives. This book offers a unique evaluative framework for hope that captures the intrinsic value of hope for many of us, the rationality and morality of hope, and ultimately how we can…Read more
  •  776
    Hope, Solidarity, and Justice
    Feminist Philosophy Quarterly 7 (2): 1-23. 2021.
    This article defends an account of collective hope that arises through solidarity in the pursuit of justice. I begin by reviewing recent literature on the nature of hope. I then explore the relationship between hope and solidarity to demonstrate the ways in which solidarity can give rise to hope. I suggest that the hope born of solidarity is collective when it is shared by at least some others, when it is caused or strengthened by activity in a collective action setting, and when the reciprocal …Read more
  •  407
    Hope
    1000-Word Philosophy. 2018.
  •  315
    Social and Political Dimensions of Hope
    Journal of Social Philosophy 50 (1): 28-44. 2019.
    A few years ago, it was common for philosophers to begin inquiry into hope by noting that the subject has received little attention in the philosophical literature. But our ability to make this claim is quickly coming to an end; hope has been earning increasing recognition in the discipline, with philosophers exploring important questions related to the nature of hope, what makes hope rational, and how hope is connected to human wellbeing and agency. Despite this recent interest, however, there …Read more
  •  90
    Emotional Hope
    In Claudia Blöser & Titus Stahl (eds.), The Moral Psychology of Hope: An Introduction (The Moral Psychology of the Emotions), Rowman & Littlefield International. pp. 115-133. 2019.
    My aim in this chapter is not to offer yet another theory of hope, but to re-orient the discussion about the nature of hope to focus on hope’s place in our hearts: on how, exactly, hope makes us feel. Although philosophers writing on hope have certainly paid attention to hope’s affective dimensions, when affect is discussed, it is often assumed that hope is positively valenced. I argue that descriptions of the phenomenology of hope as positively valenced paint hope as brighter and cheerier than …Read more
  •  1105
    Collective Resentment
    Social Theory and Practice 39 (3): 501-521. 2013.
    Resentment, as it is currently understood in the philosophical literature, is individual. That is, it is anger about a moral injury done to oneself. But in some cases, resentment responds to systemic harms and injustices rather than direct moral injuries. The purpose of this paper is to move beyond individualistic conceptions of resentment to develop an account of collective resentment that better captures the character and effects of the emotion in these cases. I use the example of indigenous a…Read more
  •  116
    Losing Hope: Injustice and Moral Bitterness
    Hypatia 32 (2): 363-379. 2017.
    In this article, I defend a conception of bitterness as a moral emotion and offer an evaluative framework for assessing when instances of bitterness are morally justified. I argue that bitterness is a form of unresolved anger involving a loss of hope that an injustice or other moral wrong will be sufficiently acknowledged and addressed. Orienting the discussion around instances of bitterness in response to social and political injustices, I argue that bitterness is sometimes morally justified ev…Read more
  •  94
    Whither Bioethics Now? The Promise of Relational Theory
    International Journal of Feminist Approaches to Bioethics 10 (1): 7-29. 2017.
    This article reflects on the work of feminist bioethicists over the past ten years, reviewing how effective feminists have been in using relational theory to reorient bioethics and where we hope it will go from here. Feminist bioethicists have made significant achievements using relational theory to shape the notion of autonomy, bringing to light the relevance of patients' social circumstances and where they are situated within systems of privilege and oppression. But there is much work to be do…Read more
  •  875
    A Perceptual Theory of Hope
    Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 5. 2018.
    This paper addresses the question of what the attitude of hope consists in. We argue that shortcomings in recent theories of hope have methodological roots in that they proceed with little regard for the rich body of literature on the emotions. Taking insights from work in the philosophy of emotions, we argue that hope involves a kind of normative perception. We then develop a strategy for determining the content of this perception, arguing that hope is a perception of practical reasons. Our pro…Read more