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Teleological Suspensions In Fear and TremblingPhilosophy and Phenomenological Research 100 (2): 425-451. 2018.I focus here on the teleological suspension of the ethical as it appears in Fear and Trembling. A common reading of Fear and Trembling is that it explores whether there are religious reasons for action that settle that one must do an action even when all the moral reasons for action tell against doing it. This interpretation has been contested. But I defend it by showing how the explicit teleological suspension of the ethical mirrors implicit teleological suspensions of the epistemological and p…Read more
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Kant on Freedom and Human Nature (edited book)Routledge. 2023.
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Kierkegaard’s account of thought experiment: a method of variationInquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.I argue that Kierkegaard has an account of thought experiment. While his contemporary Ørsted’s contributions to the early history of the concept of ‘thought experiment’ have been recently acknowledged, Kierkegaard’s contributions remain largely unrecognized. I argue that Kierkegaard’s method of ‘imaginary construction’ [Tanke-Experiment] aims at identifying underlying invariants in objects of experience. I outline similarities between Ørsted’s pursuit of invariants in the sciences and Kierkegaar…Read more
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Sartre and Frankfurt: Bad faith as evidence for three levels of volitional consciousnessEuropean Journal of Philosophy. forthcoming.This essay argues for a new conception of bad faith based partly on Harry Frankfurt's famous account of personal autonomy in terms of higher‐order volitions and caring, and based partly on Sartre's insights concerning tacit or pre‐thetic attitudes and “transcendent” freedom. Although Sartre and Frankfurt have rarely been connected, Frankfurt's concepts of volitional “wantonness” and “bullshit” (wantonness about truth) are similar in certain revealing respects to Sartre's account of bad faith. Ho…Read more
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Handbuch Anerkennung (edited book)Springer. 2018.
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Demoralization and Hope: A Psychological Reading of Kant’s Moral ArgumentThe Monist 106 (1): 46-60. 2023.Kant’s “primacy of the practical” doctrine says that we can form morally justified commitments regarding what exists, even in the absence of sufficient epistemic grounds. In this paper I critically examine three different varieties of Kant’s “moral proof” that can be found in the critical works. My claim is that the third variety—the “moral-psychological argument” based in the need to sustain moral hope and avoid demoralization—has some intriguing advantages over the other two. It starts with a …Read more
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Selfhood and Otherness in Kierkegaard's Authorship: A Heterological InvestigationLexington Books. 2017.
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The Challenge of AmoralismRatio 31 (2): 252-266. 2018.According to unconditional motivational internalism, there is an a priori constraint on an agent's forming a sincere moral judgement, namely that she is, at least to some minimal extent, motivated to act as it dictates. In order to undermine this internalist position, proponents of motivational externalism typically appeal to the possibility of the amoralist—i.e. an individual who makes sincere moral judgements, but who is completely unmoved to act accordingly. This strategy is known as the chal…Read more
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Kant, Wood and Moral ArgumentsKantian Review 27 (1): 61-70. 2022.
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Kant's Justification of EthicsOxford University Press. 2021.Kant’s arguments for the reality of human freedom and the normativity of the moral law continue to inspire work in contemporary moral philosophy. Many prominent ethicists invoke Kant, directly or indirectly, in their efforts to derive the authority of moral requirements from a more basic conception of action, agency, or rationality. But many commentators have detected a deep rift between the _Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals_ and the _Critique of Practical Reason_, leaving Kant’s project…Read more
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Ex.phil. ved NTNU – Rapport fra et lærebokprosjektNorsk Filosofisk Tidsskrift 57 (1-2): 65-69. 2022.
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There is No Teleological Suspension of the Ethical: Kierkegaard’s Logic Against Religious Justification and Moral ExceptionalismKierkegaard Studies Yearbook 23 (1): 3-32. 2012.
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11. Existential Ethics and Liberal EugenicsIn Mélissa Fox-Muraton (ed.), Kierkegaard and Issues in Contemporary Ethics, De Gruyter. pp. 215-234. 2020.
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Kierkegaard and Issues in Contemporary Ethics (edited book)De Gruyter. 2020.While Kierkegaard’s philosophy focuses on concrete human existence, his thought has rarely been challenged regarding concrete and contemporary moral issues. This volume offers an overview of contemporary ethical issues from a Kierkegaardian perspective, deliberately taking him out of the sphere of Theology and Christian Ethics, and examining the ways in which his works can provide fruitful insight into questions which Kierkegaard certainly never himself envisaged, such as accepting refugees into…Read more
NTNU
PhD, 2010
Trondheim, Trøndelag, Norway
Areas of Specialization
2 more
History of Western Philosophy |
Value Theory |
Philosophical Traditions |
Philosophy of Religion |
Existentialism |
Immanuel Kant |
Søren Kierkegaard |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |
History of Western Philosophy |
Philosophical Traditions |