•  57
    Hegel's Theory of Normativity
    Journal of the American Philosophical Association 2 (2): 196-211. 2016.
    ABSTRACT:This essay offers an interpretation of Hegel's theory of normativity according to which normative evaluation is primarily a matter of a thing's answerability to its own constitutive norms. I show that natural and spiritual norms correspond to two different species of normative evaluation for Hegel, two categorically distinct ways something can violate its own constitutive norms. I conclude with some general reflections on the relationship between normativity and ontology in Hegel's syst…Read more
  •  19
    Secularizing Kenosis
    Philosophy Today 60 (2): 609-614. 2016.
  •  89
    The Role of "Morality" in Hegel's Theory of Action
    The Owl of Minerva 44 (1/2): 67-92. 2012.
    Michael Quante has successfully shown that the “Morality” section of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right provides an account of the cognitive conditions that must be satisfied for the imputation of actions. In this essay, I argue that Quante’s picture of these conditions is misleadingly cropped, obscuring the fact that the specific cognitive conditions Hegel places on agency are much stronger than has been recognized, and of a different kind. This suggests a much different interpretation of Hegel’s phil…Read more
  •  738
    Hegel on legal and moral responsibility
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 51 (4). 2008.
    When Hegel first addresses moral responsibility in the Philosophy of Right, he presupposes that agents are only responsible for what they intended to do, but appears to offer little, if any, justification for this assumption. In this essay, I claim that the first part of the Philosophy of Right, “Abstract Right”, contains an implicit argument that legal or external responsibility (blame for what we have done) is conceptually dependent on moral responsibility proper (blame for what we have intend…Read more
  •  9
    Hegel's Theory of Responsibility
    Cambridge University Press. 2015.
    A crucial aspect of Hegel's practical philosophy is his theory of responsibility. This theory is both original and radical in its emphasis on the role and importance of social and historical conditions as a context for our actions. But even those who agree that there is something valuable in Hegel's emphasis on sociality are not in agreement about what that something is or about how Hegel argues for it. Mark Alznauer offers the first book-length account of the structure of the theory and its pla…Read more
  •  28
    Review of Allen Speight, The Philosophy of Hegel (review)
    Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 2008 (8). 2008.
  •  78
    Ethics and History in Hegel’s Practical Philosophy
    Review of Metaphysics 65 (3): 581-611. 2012.
    Hegel’s contextualization of ethics in history has often been understood as implying the possibility of “world-historical” justifications for unethical actions. Critics have seen this as a category mistake that violates the authority of the ethical sphere; defenders have argued that it represents one of Hegel’s most revolutionary insights, the idea that customary morality should not stand in the way of human liberation. In this essay, I argue that both of these reactions are based on failure to …Read more