University of California, Riverside
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2011
Ellensburg, Washington, United States of America
  •  24
    Only a Game?
    Philosophy in the Contemporary World 24 (1): 63-74. 2017.
    Many are disturbed by acts of simulated violent portrayed in contemporary video games. In this essay, I ask if violent gameplay is meaningful or significant outside of the gaming context. Following a recent discussion of the meaning of actions by T.M. Scanlon, I argue for two interrelated theses. First, I claim that in-game actions are only meaningful when the considerations and reasons that drive in-game actions are the same as those that drive analogous actions outside of the game-world. Secon…Read more
  •  101
    Value, violence, and the ethics of gaming
    Ethics and Information Technology 19 (2): 95-105. 2017.
    I argue for two theses. First, many arguments against violent gaming rely on what I call the contamination thesis, drawing their conclusions by claiming that violent gaming contaminates real world interactions. I argue that this thesis is empirically and philosophically problematic. Second, I argue that rejecting the contamination thesis does not entail that all video games are morally unobjectionable. The violence within a game can be evaluated in terms of the values the game cultivates, reinfo…Read more
  •  53
    I argue in this essay that Stoic philosophers in the late Greco-Roman period utilized philosophical exercises and spiritual technologies similar in form to a meditative exercise currently practiced in Buddhism. I begin with an in-depth discussion of moral development in the late Stoa, focusing particularly on their theories of cosmopolitanism and oikeiōsis. These theoretical commitments, I argue, necessitated the adoption of exercises and practices designed to guide practitioners toward the goal…Read more