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193The Psychology of ExclusivityLes ateliers de l'éthique/The Ethics Forum 3 (1). 2008.Friendship and romantic love are, by their very nature, exclusive relationships. This paper sug- gests that we can better understand the nature of the exclusivity in question by understanding what is wrong with the view of practical reasoning I call the Comprehensive Surveyor View. The CSV claims that practical reasoning, in order to be rational, must be a process of choosing the best available alternative from a perspective that is as detached and objective as possible. But this view, while it …Read more
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175Terrorism, War, and The Killing of the InnocentEthical Theory and Moral Practice 10 (4): 353-372. 2007.Commonsense moral thought holds that what makes terrorism particularly abhorrent is the fact that it tends to be directed toward innocent victims. Yet contemporary philosophers tend to doubt that the concept of innocence plays any significant role here, and to deny that prohibitions against targeting noncombatants can be justified through appeal to their moral innocence. I argue, however, that the arguments used to support these doubts are ultimately unsuccessful. Indeed, the philosophical posit…Read more
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172Love’s VisionPrinceton University Press. 2011."Something in between : on the nature of love" -- Love's blindness (1) : love's closed heart -- Love's blindness (2) : love's friendly eye -- Beyond comparison -- Commitments, values, and frameworks -- Valuing persons -- Love and morality -- Afterword. Between the universal and the particular.
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157Why Is Instrumental Rationality Rational?Canadian Journal of Philosophy 35 (2). 2005.It is relatively common for philosophers to doubt whether we have any reason to act as morality requires. But it is very difficult to find philosophers who are willing to doubt, in a similar way, the idea that we have reason to act as instrumental rationality requires; reason, that is, to take effective steps toward attaining the ends we have accepted as our own. The inference from the fact that a certain action is an effective means of satisfying an agent’s ends to the conclusion that that agen…Read more
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138Friendship without partiality?Ratio 13 (1). 2000.Consequentialism involves a kind of strong impartiality which seems incompatible with the sort of partiality manifested in friendships. Consequentialists such as Kagan respond that friendship does not, in fact, require partiality. Against this, I argue that friendship cannot exist without expressions of personal feeling, and that such expressions necessarily involve a kind of partiality. Because her every action is determined by the goal of maximizing the impersonal good, a consequentialist cann…Read more
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101Meaningless Happiness and Meaningful SufferingSouthern Journal of Philosophy 42 (3): 333-347. 2004.
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71Goldstick on the 'Two Hats' ProblemUtilitas 15 (3): 369. 2003.The indirect-strategy consequentialist recommends that the consequentialist agent develop certain non-consequentialist feelings and dispositions. It is difficult to see, however, how such an agent could knowingly do this, given her moral beliefs. Goldstick has argued that the problem is not particular to consequentialism; deontologists, too, are obliged to admit the possibility of mental divisions of this sort. I argue, however, that the type of mental division to which the deontologist is commi…Read more
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69“This Endless Space between the Words”: The Limits of Love in Spike Jonze'sHerMidwest Studies in Philosophy 39 (1): 120-143. 2015.
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53Friendship and Agent-Relative MoralityRoutledge. 2001.First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company
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51Creating cosmopolitans: the case for literature (review)Studies in Philosophy and Education 25 (5-6): 363-383. 2006.A cosmopolitan education must help us identify with those who are unlike us. In Martha Nussbaum’s words, students must learn “enough to recognize common aims, aspirations, and values, and enough about these common ends to see how variously they are instantiated in the many cultures and their histories.” It is commonly thought that reading serious literature will play a significant role in this process. However, this claim is challenged by theorists we call sentimentalists, who claim that the goa…Read more
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50Beauty, evil, andPhilosophy and Literature 28 (1): 23-40. 2004.: Can literature provide moral insight? Or can literary works do nothing more than reflect the moral views that readers bring to them? We argue that literary works can provide genuine moral insight by discussing one that does. Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient challenges two key assumptions about moral evil: that evil necessarily involves active malevolence, and that evil and aesthetic beauty are mutually exclusive. These assumptions play foundational roles both in everyday moral thinking, …Read more
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49“Like a Picture or a Bump on the Head”: Vision, Cognition, and the Language of PoetryMidwest Studies in Philosophy 33 (1): 131-158. 2009.No Abstract
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46Beauty, Evil, and The English PatientPhilosophy and Literature 28 (1): 23-40. 2004.Can literature provide moral insight? Or can literary works do nothing more than reflect the moral views that readers bring to them? We argue that literary works can provide genuine moral insight by discussing one that does. Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient challenges two key assumptions about moral evil: that evil necessarily involves active malevolence, and that evil and aesthetic beauty are mutually exclusive. These assumptions play foundational roles both in everyday moral thinking, an…Read more
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44Should We Want to Be Loved Unconditionally and Forever?Philosophies 8 (2): 34. 2023.People often say that romantic love should be unconditional, and they often want romantic love to last forever. These claims and desires are presumably linked: part of the reason it would be good for love to be unconditional is that it is assumed that such love, being detached from changing conditions, would last forever. This article argues that there are, indeed, kinds of unconditional and permanent love that are worth wanting, but also kinds that are not, and attempts to clarify just what it …Read more
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42Carrie Jenkins’ What Love Is: And What It Could Be (review)The Philosophers' Magazine 78 108-110. 2017.
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39John Gibson, ed., The Philosophy of PoetryEstetika: The European Journal of Aesthetics 53 (1): 100-110. 2016.A review of John Gibson´s The Philosophy of Poetry.
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37Beauty Always DiesMidwest Studies in Philosophy 44 (1): 213-230. 2019.Midwest Studies In Philosophy, Volume 44, Issue 1, Page 213-230, December 2019.
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32One. “Something In Between”: On the Nature of LoveIn Love's Vision, Princeton University Press. pp. 1-27. 2011.
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29Love Drugs: The Chemical Future of Relationships (review)The Philosophers' Magazine 90 126-128. 2020.
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20Anxious feelings, anxious friends: on anxiety and friendshipSynthese 199 (5-6): 14709-14724. 2021.Although anxiety is frequently seen as a predominantly negative phenomenon, some recent researchers have argued that it plays an important positive function, serving as an alert to warn agents of possible problems or threats. I argue that not only can one’s own, first-personal anxiety perform this function; because it is possible for others—in particular, one’s friends—to feel anxious on one’s behalf, their anxious feelings can sometimes play the same role in our functioning, and make similar co…Read more
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20Morality, Perspective, and Fantasy: A Comment on Sarah BussJournal of Applied Philosophy 37 (1): 51-57. 2020.A response to Sarah Buss's article, ‘Some Musings about the Limits of an Ethics that Can Be Applied,’ focusing on issues connected with Buss’s claims about human insignificance, and the indifference to self that the recognition of insignificance allegedly engenders.
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17Three. Love’s Blindness : Love’s Friendly EyeIn Love's Vision, Princeton University Press. pp. 46-73. 2011.
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17"Review of" The Prudence of Love: How Possessing the Virtue of Love Benefits the Lover" (review)Essays in Philosophy 13 (1): 25. 2012.
Chico, California, United States of America
Areas of Interest
Aesthetics |
Meta-Ethics |
Normative Ethics |