•  440
    Both proponents and opponents of capital punishment largely agree that death is the most severe punishment that societies should consider imposing on offenders. This chapter considers how (if at all) this ‘Ultimate Thesis’ can be vindicated. Appeals to the irrevocability of death, the badness of being executed, the badness of death, or the harsh condemnation societies express by sentencing offenders to death do not succeed in vindicating this Thesis, and in particular, fail to show that capital …Read more
  •  6
    Editorial
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 26 (5): 631-633. 2023.
  •  15
    Editorial
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1-3. forthcoming.
  •  170
    Respect appears to generate a puzzling self-other asymmetry: Respect for others can demand that we avoid knowledge of others or ignore that knowledge in deciding how we treat others. This demand for epistemic distancing lies behind the imperatives not to violate others’ privacy or to treat them paternalistically. Self-respect, in contrast, mandates that we pursue knowledge of ourselves and that we choose and act light of that self-knowledge. Individual agents thus do not have a duty to epistemic…Read more
  •  158
    Why Racialized Poverty Matters — and the Way Forward
    In Gottfried Schweiger & Clemens Sedmak (eds.), Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Poverty, Routledge. pp. 406-16. 2023.
    Poverty in many societies is racialized, with poverty concentrated among particular racial groups. This article aims (a) to provide a philosophical account of how racialized poverty can represent an unjust form of inequality, and (b) to suggest the general direction that policies aiming to reduce racialized poverty ought to take in light of this account. (a) As a species of inequality, racialized poverty (whether absolute or relative) is not intrinsically morally objectionable. However, it can b…Read more
  •  449
    Empathy and Psychopaths’ Inability to Grieve
    Philosophy 98 (4): 413-431. 2023.
    Psychopaths exhibit diminished ability to grieve. Here I address whether this inability can be explained by the trademark feature of psychopaths, namely, their diminished capacity for interpersonal empathy. I argue that this hypothesis turns out to be correct, but requires that we conceptualize empathy not merely as an ability to relate (emotionally and ethically) to other individuals but also as an ability to relate to past and present iterations of ourselves. This reconceptualization accords w…Read more
  •  13
    European Journal of Philosophy, EarlyView.
  • Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Suicide (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
  •  35
    Rationally Facing Death: Fear and Other Alternatives
    Philosophy Compass 18 (6). 2023.
    Explaining what emotions or attitudes it is rational for humans to have toward our own deaths and toward their mortality has been a central task within most philosophical traditions. This article critically examines the rationality of five emotions or attitudes that might be taken toward death: fear, insofar as death can harm us by reducing our overall level of well-being; the related attitude of existential terror, a feeling of dismay or uncanniness directed at the prospect of our eventual non-…Read more
  •  244
    Envisioning Markets in Assisted Dying
    In Michael Cholbi & Jukka Varelius (eds.), New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia, Springer Verlag. pp. 263-278. 2015.
    Ethical debates about assisted dying typically assume that only medical professionals should be able to provide patients with assisted dying. This assumption partially rests on the unstated principle that assisted dying providers may not be motivated by pecuniary considerations. Here I outline and defend a mixed provider model of assisted dying provision that contests this principle. Under this model, medically competent non-physician professionals could receive fees for providing assisted dying…Read more
  •  28
    This book provides novel perspectives on ethical justifiability of assisted dying in the revised edition of New Directions in the Ethics of Assisted Suicide and Euthanasia. Going significantly beyond traditional debates about the value of human life, the ethical significance of individual autonomy, the compatibility of assisted dying with the ethical obligations of medical professionals, and questions surrounding intention and causation, this book promises to shift the terrain of the ethical deb…Read more
  •  15
    Replies to Garland, Ben-Ze'ev, Timmerman, and Beisecker
    Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 4 (1): 33-47. 2022.
    I respond here to commentators’ concerns about the scope of grief, further clarifying the role of practical identity in those whose deaths we grieve; elaborating my understanding of grief as egocentric; defending my own resolution of the paradox of grief against alternative resolutions proposed by my commentators; and substantiating the role of self-knowledge in the self-regarding duty to grieve.
  •  19
    Précis: Grief: A Philosophical Guide
    Journal of Philosophy of Emotion 4 (1): 1-5. 2022.
    Précis of Grief: A Philosophical Guide.
  •  47
    The Case Against Death (review)
    Philosophical Quarterly 73 (3): 826-828. 2022.
    The Case Against Death aims to show that what Linden calls the ‘Wise View’ regarding death and ageing should be rejected. Because the adherents of the Wise View.
  •  174
    Grief as Attention
    Journal of Consciousness Studies 29 (9-10): 63-83. 2022.
    Grief seems difficult to locate within familiar emotion taxonomies, as it not a basic emotion nor a hybrid thereof. Here I propose that grief is better conceptualized as an emotionally rich attentional phenomenon rather than an emotion or sequence of emotions. In grieving, that another person has died, the loss incurred by the grieving, etc., occupy the forefront of the grieving subject’s consciousness while other candidate facts for their attention recede into the background. The former set of …Read more
  •  2
    Debating a Post-Work Future: Perspectives from Philosophy and the Social Sciences (edited book)
    with Kory P. Schaff, Jean-Phillipe Deranty, and Denise Celentano
    Routledge. forthcoming.
    Growing economic inequality, workforce precarity, the perceived meaninglessness of many jobs, and the prospect of widespread technological unemployment have led to an unprecedented level of critical scrutiny of the institution of work. Some scholars go so far as to propose that we should take seriously, or even embrace, a “post-work” future. This volume aims to provide the first critical overview of the scholarly arguments about the design and desirability of such a “post-work” world. Topics ad…Read more
  •  16
    Editorial
    Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 1-3. 2022.
  •  160
    Philosophical Approaches to Work and Labor
    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 2022.
    Introduction Conceptual Distinctions: Work, Labor, Employment, Leisure The Value of Work and the ‘Anti-Work’ Critique Work, Meaning, and Dignity Work and Distributive Justice Work and Contributive Justice Work and Productive Justice Work and its Future BIBLIOGRAPHY
  •  115
    Justice in Human Capital
    In Julian David Jonker & Grant J. Rozeboom (eds.), Working as Equals: Relational Egalitarianism and the Workplace, Oxford University Press Usa. pp. 113-131. 2023.
    Human capital is that body of skills, knowledge, or dispositions that enhances the value of individuals’ contributions to economic production. Because human capital is both a byproduct of, and an important ingredient in, cooperative productive activities, it is subject to demands of justice. Here I consider what comparative justice in human capital benefits and burdens amounts to, with a special concern for the place of equality in allocating such burdens and benefits. Identifying these demands…Read more
  •  86
    Among contemporary philosophers, David Benatar espouses a form of pessimism most closely aligned with Schopenhauer’s. Both maintain that human existence is a misfortune, such that each of us would have been better off having never existed at all. Here my concerns are twofold: First, I investigate why, despite these similarities, Schopenhauer and Benatar arrive at divergent positions regarding suicide. For whereas Benatar concludes that suicide is sometimes a moral wrong to others but is prudenti…Read more
  •  101
    _Procreation, Parenthood, and Educational Rights_ explores important issues at the nexus of two burgeoning areas within moral and social philosophy: procreative ethics and parental rights. Surprisingly, there has been comparatively little scholarly engagement across these subdisciplinary boundaries, despite the fact that parental rights are paradigmatically ascribed to individuals responsible for procreating particular children. This collection thus aims to bring expert practitioners from these …Read more
  •  1235
    The Rationality of Suicide and the Meaningfulness of Life
    In Iddo Landau (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Meaning in Life, Oxford University Press. pp. 445-460. 2022.
    A wide body of psychological research corroborates the claim that whether one’s life is (or will be) meaningful appears relevant to whether it is rational to continue living. This article advances conceptions of life’s meaningfulness and of suicidal choice with an eye to ascertaining how the former might provide justificatory reasons relevant to the latter. Drawing upon the recent theory of meaningfulness defended by Cheshire Calhoun, the decision to engage in suicide can be understood as a choi…Read more
  •  637
    Grieving Our Way Back to Meaningfulness
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 90 235-251. 2021.
    The deaths of those on whom our practical identities rely generate a sense of disorientation or alienation from the world seemingly at odds with life being meaningful. In the terms put forth in Cheshire Calhoun’s recent account of meaningfulness in life, because their existence serves as a metaphysical presupposition of our practical identities, their deaths threaten to upend a background frame of agency against which much of our choice and deliberation takes place. Here I argue for a dual role …Read more
  •  120
    Grief: A Philosophical Guide
    Princeton University Press. 2022.
    An engaging and illuminating exploration of grief—and why, despite its intense pain, it can also help us grow Experiencing grief at the death of a person we love or who matters to us—as universal as it is painful—is central to the human condition. Surprisingly, however, philosophers have rarely examined grief in any depth. In Grief, Michael Cholbi presents a groundbreaking philosophical exploration of this complex emotional event, offering valuable new insights about what grief is, whom we griev…Read more
  •  434
    What’s wrong with esoteric morality
    Les Ateliers de l'Éthique / the Ethics Forum 15 (1-2): 163-185. 2020.
    A moral theory T is esoteric if and only if T is true but there are some individuals who, by the lights of T itself, ought not to embrace T, where to embrace T is to believe T and rely upon it in practical deliberation. Some philosophers hold that esotericism is a strong, perhaps even decisive, reason to reject a moral theory. However, proponents of this objection have often supposed its force is obvious and have said little to articulate it. I defend a version of this objection—namely, that, in…Read more
  •  511
    Equal Respect for Rational Agency
    In Mark Timmons (ed.), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics Volume 10, Oxford University Press, Usa. pp. 182-203. 2020.
    Individuals are owed equal respect. But on the basis of what property of individuals are they owed such respect? A popular Kantian answer —rational agency — appears less plausible in light of the growing psychological evidence that human choice is subject to a wide array of biases (framing, laziness, etc.); human beings are neither equal in rational agency nor especially robust rational agents. Defenders of this Kantian answer thus need a non-ideal theory of equal respect for rational agency, on…Read more
  •  3116
    The Ethics of Choosing Careers and Jobs
    In Bob Fischer (ed.), College Ethics, Oxford University Press. pp. 878-889. 2020.
    Choices of jobs and careers are among the ethically significant choices individuals make. This article argues against the 'maximalist' view that we are ethically required to choose those jobs and careers (among those that are not intrinsically wrong) that are best overall in terms of benfitting others or addressing injustice. Because such choices are often identity-based, the maximalist view is overly demanding, in the way that requiring individuals to marry on the basis of a maximalist demand i…Read more
  •  248
    Must I Benefit Myself?
    In Douglas W. Portmore (ed.), Oxford Handbook of Consequentialism, . pp. 253-268. 2020.
    Morality seems to require us to attend to the good of others, but does not require that we assign any importance to our own good. Standard forms of consequentialism thus appear vulnerable to the compulsory self-benefit objection: they require agents to benefit themselves when doing so is entailed by the requirement of maximizing overall impersonal good. Attempts to address this objection by appealing to ideally motivated consequentialist agents; by rejecting maximization; by leveraging consequen…Read more