Rutgers - New Brunswick
Department of Philosophy
PhD, 2003
Richmond, Virginia, United States of America
  •  203
    A theory of wrongful exploitation
    Philosophers' Imprint 9 1-14. 2009.
    My primary aims in this paper are to explain what exploitation is, when it’s wrong, and what makes it wrong. I argue that exploitation is not always wrong, but that it can be, and that its wrongness cannot be fully explained with familiar moral constraints such as those against harming people, coercing them, or using them as a means, or with familiar moral obligations such as an obligation to rescue those in distress or not to take advantage of people’s vulnerabilities. Its deepest wrongness, I …Read more
  •  134
    Exploitation and injustice
    Social Theory and Practice 34 (4): 551--572. 2008.
    When is it immoral to take advantage of another person for one's own benefit? For some, such as Ruth Sample, John Roemer, and Will Kymlicka, the answer at least partly depends on whether what one takes advantage of is the fact that this person is, or has been, the victim of injustice. I argue, however, that whether person A wrongly exploits person B is wholly unrelated to whether A takes advantage of the fact that B is, or was, the victim of injustice. I also develop a positive account regarding…Read more
  •  106
    Outsourcing self‐government
    Ethics 120 (4): 761-790. 2010.
    I argue against the view that there is intrinsic value in making one's own decisions about the direction and shape of one's life.
  •  84
    Autonomy, History, and the Origins of Our Desires
    Journal of Moral Philosophy 8 (3): 415-434. 2011.
    A popular view among autonomy theorists is that facts about the history of a person's desires, and specifically facts about how they were formed or acquired, matter crucially to her autonomy. I argue that while there is an important relationship between a person's autonomy and the history of her desires, a person's autonomy does not depend on how her desires were formed or acquired. I argue that a desire's autonomy lies not in its origins but in whether its bearer has a history of having engaged…Read more
  •  80
    Respecting persons, respecting preferences
    Utilitas 19 (1): 21-46. 2007.
    In this article, I argue that the state has a prima facie obligation to help its citizens satisfy their autonomous preferences. I argue that this obligation is grounded in the state's obligation to respect its citizens as persons, and that part of what is involved in respecting someone as a person is helping her satisfy her autonomous preferences. I argue that that which makes preferences autonomous is also that which makes them, and not their non-autonomous counterparts, worthy of respect. In a…Read more
  •  34
    Against Moral Responsibility
    Philosophical Quarterly 66 (265): 889-892. 2016.
    A review of Bruce Waller's "Against Moral Responsibility."
  •  23
    A review of James Stacey Taylor's "Personal Autonomy"
  •  23
    The Deep Problem with Voluntaristic Theories of Political Obligation
    American Philosophical Quarterly 47 (3): 267-78. 2010.
    Voluntaristic theories of political obligation claim that a citizen's moral obligation to obey his state's laws is grounded in his voluntary undertakings or agreements. Two of this view's more popular varieties are consent theories and reciprocation theories, the former grounding a citizen's political obligation in a promise and the latter grounding it in the acceptance or the receipt of the benefits of social cooperation. A common objection to these theories is that they cannot justify politica…Read more
  •  10
    Exploitation and Friendship
    Southern Journal of Philosophy 54 (S1): 130-142. 2016.
    I argue that Alan Wertheimer’s account of unfair advantage-taking, though flawed, is more plausible than his critics believe. Indeed, I argue that his proposed model for assessing fair exchange – the friendship model – according to which a transaction’s terms are unfair to the extent that they deviate from the terms upon which we’d expect good friends to transact – is compelling and can serve as the basis for a plausible theory of wrongful exploitation. Wertheimer, I argue, was wrong to think …Read more
  • Autonomous Preferences, Autonomous Persons: Toward an Achievement Conception of Autonomy and its Role in Political Argument
    Dissertation, Rutgers the State University of New Jersey - New Brunswick. 2003.
    Though autonomy's role in moral, political, and legal argument has risen to considerable prominence, its nature and value remain obscure and contentious. This project is an attempt to capture what is at the heart of autonomy and to explore some of its overlooked political implications. I argue than an autonomous person is someone who is self-creating, self-determining, and acts on and satisfies his autonomous preferences. Moreover, I argue that the state has a prima facie obligation to help its …Read more