Overview
Click below for a slightly longer overview (and a link to a very long overview).
I'm interested in a wide range of questions in normative philosophy. A central theme of my work is about the role of normative reasons in normative theory. I have defended the view that normative reasons are the fundamental constituents of the normative. I've defended this directly and also indirectly by defending reasons-based accounts of a wide range of normative phenomena. The largest indirect project was my first monograph The Importance of Being Rational, which was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press. More recent work has defended the view more directly and also gone some way towards mapping out a general conception of the normative world.
Most of my work in the past 5 or so years has been about the epistemology of aesthetics, suspension of judgment, and partiality in normative ethics. My second book is about the first topic (and how it relates to the epistemology of ethics), Kurt Sylvan and I plan to write a book about the second topic (and have already written a trilogy of papers), and I have written two large papers on the third topic.
For a much more detailed overview of my work circa summer 2023, see this extended research statement.
Written Work
More information about the books can be found on the books page.
Metaethics & Practical Reason
In Search of Lost Principles: Generic Generalism in Ethics and Aesthetics
forthcoming in Philosophical Studies I defend the view that there are generic truths about ethics and aesthetics that are ethical and aesthetic principles. You can find the current version here:
Choosing the Right Companion: On the Authority of Epistemic, Aesthetic, and Moral Normativity
forthcoming in The Future of Normativity, Oxford University Press It's often said that moral and epistemic reasons and requirements are more robust than aesthetic reasons and requirements. In this paper, I argue that this is an illusion. To show this, I will first sketch a common constitutivist view of epistemic normativity. Central to this account is the nature of the reactions that are within the reach of the epistemic--beliefs, credences, etc. I then argue that it's plausible that the same story can be told for aesthetic normativity. The final task is to argue that the practical side of morality does not work this way. There are no attitudes to play the appropriate role. Thus, it turns out that practical moral normativity doesn't have the same structure as epistemic and aesthetic normativity. At the end, I sketch a view about part of morality that does have the relevant structure and suggest how to understand the practical in the image of the epistemic You can find the current version here:
Everything First
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 2023 I defend an analysis of normative reasons in terms of fittingness. I argue this analysis is compatible with the view that normative reasons are the fundamental constituents of the normative (spoiler: fittingness is not normative). You can find the published version here:
Precis and Replies to Bedke & Guindon, Hazlett, and Way,
Analysis, 2021 A precis of The Importance of Being Rational and replies to Matthew Bedke & Bruno Guindon, Alan Hazlett, and Jonathan Way, as part of book symposium in Analysis. You can find the published version of the precis here:
You can find the published version of the replies here:
Precis and Replies to Schafer, Schroeder and Staffel
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2020 A precis of The Importance of Being Rational and replies to Karl Schafer, Mark Schroeder, and Julia Staffel, as part of book symposium in PPR. You can find the published version of the precis here:
You can find the published version of the replies here:
The Normativity of Rationality
in The Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason, 2020, edited by Ruth Chang and Kurt Sylvan This is an opinionated guide to the debate about the normativity of rationality. I argue that rationality is normative.. You can find the penultimate version here:
Reasons: Wrong, Right, Normative, Fundamental (with Kurt Sylvan)
Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, 2019 We argue first that not all right-kind reasons are normative reasons. This gives rise to the Right Kind of Reasons Problem, which is the problem of distinguishing between the right-kind of reasons that are normative reasons and the ones that are not. We canvas possible ways of doing this. Ultimately, we conclude that the best option is a form of naturalistic constitutivism. You can find the published version here:
The Importance of Being Rational
Oxford University Press, 2018 In this book I defend the claim that what it is to be rational is to correctly respond to the objective normative reasons you possess. Chapters 1-4 and chapter 8 mainly focus on debates in metaethics and practical reason. How to Learn about Aesthetics and Morality Through Acquaintance and Testimony
Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 2018 There are parallel debates in aesthetics and metaethics about the epistemic merits of aesthetic and moral testimony. Most participants in both debates hold that there is something amiss with beliefs formed merely on the basis of aesthetic and moral testimony. The similarities between the two debates dry up quickly, though. The main controversy in aesthetics is whether it is even possible to acquire aesthetic knowledge from testimony. While a select few have taken this tack in metaethics, most agree that we can acquire moral knowledge via testimony. The trick is explaining why, despite this, there is something fishy about moral beliefs purely based on testimony. A plausible hypothesis about why the two literatures diverge when they do is that it is widely accepted in aesthetics that acquaintance with things that have aesthetic value is necessary to have paradigm aesthetic knowledge. Since (usually) one doesn't become acquainted with things that have aesthetic value when one purely defers to someone else, this explains why many have thought that knowledge is impossible via aesthetic testimony. Relatively little has been said about the role of acquaintance in the acquisition of moral knowledge. In this paper, I argue that it's plausible that acquaintance does play a prominent role in the acquisition of paradigmatic moral knowledge and that this helps explain what's amiss with moral testimony. In fact, I will defend a general theory of what is going on in both the moral case and the aesthetic case. According to this theory, acquaintance enables one to acquire a certain type of know how—by being acquainted with certain normatively relevant facts, we come to know how to use those facts as reasons for various reactions. Neither aesthetic nor moral testimony acquaint us with the full range of normatively relevant properties. thus, we cannot come to know how to use the full range of facts as reasons when we defer. This is what is amiss with moral and aesthetic testimony. You can find the penultimate version here:
What You're Rationally Required To Do and What You Ought To Do (Are the Same Thing!)
Mind, 2017 It is a truism that we ought to be rational. Despite this (or because of it), it has become popular to think that it is not the case that we ought to be rational. In this paper I argue for a view about rationality--the view that what you are rationally required to do is determined by the normative reasons you possess--by showing that it can vindicate that we ought to be rational. I do this by showing that it is independently very plausible that what we ought to do is determined by the normative reasons we possess. Thus, the paper also makes a contribution to the debate about the nature of our obligations. You can find the final version here:
On the Intellectual Conditions for Responsibility: Acting for the Right Reasons, Conceptualization, and Credit
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2017 In this paper I'm interested in the prospects for the Right Reasons theory of creditworthiness. The Right Reasons theory says that what it is for an agent to be creditworthy for X-ing is for that agent to X for the right reasons. The paper has a negative goal and a positive goal. The negative goal is to show that a class of Right Reasons theories are doomed. These theories all have a Conceptualization Condition on acting for the right reasons. Conceptualization Conditions demand that agents who act for the right reasons deploy or be able to deploy certain normative concepts in acting. I argue that views of this type run into a host of overintellectualization problems. The positive aim is to argue for my Right Reasons view, which appeals to know-how to avoid overintellectualization. Final draft here: (pdf) The Explanatory Problem for Cognitivism about Practical Reason
Normativity: Practical and Epistemic, 2017, Oxford University Press Cognitivists about practical reason hold that we can explain why certain wide-scope requirements of practical rationality are true by appealing to certain epistemic requirements. Extant discussions of cognitivism focus solely on two claims. The first is the claim that intentions involve beliefs. The second is that whenever your intentions are incoherent in certain ways, you will be epistemically irrational (given that intentions involve beliefs). Even if the cognitivist successfully defends these claims, she still needs to show that they entail certain practical requirements. That is, she has to show that the epistemic requirements explain the practical requirements. In this paper I argue that it is not plausible that the epistemic requirements explain the practical requirements. This shows that the cognitivists' project will fail even if we grant their controversial views about the relationship between the practical and epistemic. You can find the uncorrected proofs here:
Internalism about Reasons (with David Plunkett)
In The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics, 2017 The plan for this chapter is as follows. We will start by providing an overview of some key arguments on behalf of internalism and externalism, respectively. Following this, we will look at how the debate over internalism interacts with the debate over moral rationalism. Moral rationalism, as we will understand it, is the view that morality necessarily provides normative reasons. We will use the discussion of moral rationalism as a general frame to discuss some of the major versions of internalism. You can find the published version here:
Weighing Reasons (coedited and introduced with Barry Maguire)
Oxford University Press, 2016 A new collection of papers on the weight of reasons. Contributors: Ralf Bader, Ruth Chang, Stephen Darwall, Daniel Fogal, Joshua Gert, John Horty, Stephen Kearns, Errol Lord & Barry Maguire, Kate Manne, Shyam Nair, Joseph Raz, Karl Schafer, Mark Schroeder & Alida Liberman, Michael Smith & Frank Jackson An Opinionated Guide to the Weight of Reasons (with Barry Maguire)
In Weighing Reasons, Oxford University Press, 2016 In this paper we do two things. First, we motivate the importance of the weight of reasons. The motivation is simple. In order to understand strict deontic notions like obligation and permission, we claim, we need a weighted notion. Since normative reasons are a weighted notion par excellence, they provide an excellent theoretical tool in understanding strict deontic concepts. Our second goal is to catalogue the main issues and choice points facing a theory of weight. By doing this, we hope to make clear which approaches have the most promise and to make clear which problems are the most pressing for future research. On Iwao Hirose and Jonas Olson's Oxford Handbook of Value Theory (with Kurt Sylvan)
Acting for the Right Reasons, Abilities, and Obligation
Objectivists about obligation hold that obligations are determined by all of the normatively relevant facts. Perspectivalists, on the other hand, hold that only facts within one's perspective can determine what we are obligated to do. In this paper I argue for a perspectivalist view. On my view, what you are obligated to do is determined by the normative reasons you possess. My argument for my view is anchored in the thought that our obligations have to be action-guiding in a certain sense--we have to be able to act for the reasons that obligate us. I argue that we have this ability--the ability to act for the right reasons--only if we possess those reasons. Thus, objectivism is false. In the second half of the paper I argue that problems having to do with new information do not plague my particular perspectival view.
On Nomy Arpaly and Timothy Schroeder's In Praise of Desire
On Joshua Gert's Normative Bedrock: Response-Dependence, Rationality, and Reasons
The Real Symmetry Problem(s) for Wide-Scope Accounts of Rationality
Philosophical Studies, 2014 You are irrational when you are akratic. On this point most agree. Despite this agreement, there is a tremendous amount of disagreement about what the correct explanation of this data is. Narrow-scopers think that the correct explanation is that you are violating a narrow-scope conditional requirement. You lack an intention to x that you are required to have given the fact that you believe you ought to x. Wide-scopers disagree. They think that a conditional you are required to make true is false. You aren't required to have any particular attitudes. You're just requried to intend to x or not believe you ought to x. Wide-scope accounts are symmetrical insofar as they predict that you are complying with the relevant requirement just so long as the relevant conditional is true. Some narrow-scopers object to this symmetry. However, there is disagreement about why the symmetry is objectionable. This has led wide-scopers to defend their view against a number of different symmetry objections. I think their defenses in the face of these objections are, on the whole, plausible. Unfortunately for them, they aren't defending their view against the best version of the objection. In this paper I will show that there is a symmetry objection to wide-scope accounts that both hasn't been responded to and is a serious problem for wide-scope accounts. Moreover, my version of the objection will allow us to see that there is at least one narrow-scope view that has been seriously underappreciated in the literature. The Coherent and The Rational
Analytic Philosophy, 2014 Many ethicists think that rationality has a very tight connection with coherence. According to the most extreme view of this type, rationality only requires you to be coherent in various ways. A major cost of holding this view is that it commits you to thinking that rationality never requires one to perform particular actions or hold particular attitudes. It is widely thought that this is a cost we must pay because there are no plausible views that vindicate the thought that we are rationally required to perform particular actions and hold particular attitudes. In this paper I argue there is a plausible non-coherentist view. According to this view, what you are rationally required to do is determined by the normative reasons you possess. I show that this view avoids the major problems of rival views while also being able to explain why it is that you are necessarily irrational when you are incoherent. Violating Requirements, Exiting from Requirements, and The Scope of Rationality
The Philosophical Quarterly, 2011 Having Reasons and The Factoring Account
Philosophical Studies, 2010 Dancy on Acting for the Right Reason
Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, 2008 Elusive Reasons and Perspectivalism about Obligation
Abandoned Manuscript Circa 2012 Perspectivalism about obligation is the view that only facts within our perspective can determine our obligations. This view has become very popular recently due to the support of powerful cases (so-called Mine Shaft cases). In this paper I argue that perspectival views face a major threat from elusive reasons. Elusive reasons are reasons that cannot enter one's perspective and still be reasons. It seems like elusive reasons can obligate. If they can, then perspectivalism is false. I try to resist the argument on behalf of the perspectivalist but argue that the best defense leaves the perspectivalist with a dilemma. No longer in progress. I leave it here since it's been cited. Draft available upon request. |
Epistemology
On Ernie Sosa's Epistemic Explanations
Mind, 2023 A critical notice of Ernie Sosa's 2021 book Epistemic Explanations. You can find the typeset draft here:
On Mark Schroeder's Reasons First
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2023 A review of Mark Schroeder's 2021 book Reasons First. You can find the published version here:
Enriched Perceptual Content and the Limits of Foundationalism
Philosophical Topics, 2022 This paper is about the epistemology of perceptual experiences that have enriched high-level content. Enriched high-level content is content about features other than shape, color, and spatial relations that has a particular etiology. Its etiology runs through states of the agent that process other perceptual content and output sensory content about high-level features. My main contention is that the justification provided by such experiences (for claims about the high-level content) is not foundational justification. This is because the justification provided by such experiences is epistemically dependent on having justification to believe certain claims about the content relevant for enrichment--claims about what I call the corresponding features. You can find the penultimate draft here:
On Suspending Properly (with Kurt Sylvan)
forthcoming in Propositional and Doxastic Justification, Routledge We argue for a novel view of suspending judgment properly--i.e., suspending judgment in an ex post justified way. In so doing we argue for a Kantian virtue-theoretic view of epistemic normativity and against teleological virtue-theoretic accounts. You can find the penultimate draft here:
Beginning in Wonder: Suspensive Attitudes and Epistemic Dilemmas (with Kurt Sylvan)
forthcoming in Epistemic Dilemmas, Oxford University Press We argue that we can avoid epistemic dilemmas by properly understanding the nature and epistemology of the suspension of judgment, with a particular focus on conflicts between higher-order evidence and first-order evidence. You can find the current draft here:
Reasons to Suspend, Higher-Order Evidence, and Defeat (with Kurt Sylvan)
Reasons, Justification, and Defeat, 2021, Oxford University Press We argue that attractive moderate views about disagreement and epistemic akrasia are within reach so long as we understand the proper role of the epistemology of suspension of judgment. You can find the penultimate draft here:
Suspension of Judgment, Rationality's Competition, and the Reach of the Epistemic
The Ethics of Belief and Beyond. Understanding Mental Normativity, 2020, Routledge This paper is about the boundaries of epistemic normativity. I argue we can understand these better by thinking about which mental states are competitor's in rationality's competition. I argue that belief, disbelief, and two kinds of suspension of judgment are competitors. I show that there are non-evidential reasons for suspension of judgment. One upshot is an independent motivation for a certain sort of pragmatist view of epistemic rationality. You can find the penultimate draft here:
The Vices of Perception
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2020 Susanna Siegel argues that perceptual experiences can be rational, and this explains the deficits of certain kinds of compromised perceptual experiences. In order to say this, she needs to argue against certain views of basing states on reasons. In this paper I first push back against this arguments by appealing to my account of basing. I think offer an alternative explanation of compromised perceptual experiences. According to this explanation, they are compromised because they manifest epistemic vices. This can be true even if they are not themselves the sort of thing that can be rational. You can find the penultimate draft here:
Prime Time (for the Basing Relation) (with Kurt Sylvan)
in Well-Founded Belief: New Essays on the Basing Relation, 2019, Routledge It is often presupposed that believing for a normative reason consists in nothing more than (i) believing for a motivating reason and (ii) that reason's happening to coincide (perhaps by sheer luck) with a normative reason, where (i) and (ii) are independent factors. This is the Composite View. In this paper, we argue against the Composite View on exten- sional and systematic grounds. We advocate an alternative we call the Prime View. On this view, believing for a normative reason is a distinc- tive achievement that isn't captured by the mere conjunction of (i) and (ii). Its being an achievement entails, we argue, that (i) and (ii) are not independent when one believes for a normative reason: minimally, (i) must hold because (ii) holds. Apart from their intrinsic interest, these conclusions have many important implications for epistemology. Evidence and Epistemic Reasons
forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook of Evidence, edited by Maria Lasonen-Aarnio and Clayton Littlejohn This paper is an opinionated survey of the debate over what I call evidentialism about epistemic reasons, which maintains that only the evidence provides epistemic reasons. I end up arguing against evidentialism (for more, see the papers about suspension of judgment above). You can find the penultimate draft here:
The Importance of Being Rational, chapters 3 and 7
Oxford University Press, 2018 In this book I defend the claim that what it is to be rational is to correctly respond to the objective normative reasons you possess. Chapters 3 and 7 primarily focus on debates in epistemology. Defeating the Externalist's Demons
forthcoming in The New Evil Demon: New Essays on Knowledge, Justification, and Rationality, Oxford University Press Internalists about justification complain that externalists cannot explain why non-factive internal state duplicates are equally rational. In this paper I show that my externalist view of justification can explain why non-factive internal state duplicates are equally rational. You can find the current draft here:
Epistemic Reasons, Evidence, and Defeaters
Oxford Handbook on Reasons and Normativity, 2018, Oxford University Press The post-Gettier literature contained many views that tried to solve the Gettier problem by appealing to the notion of defeat. Unfortunately, all of these views are false. The failure of these views greatly contributed to a general distrust of reasons in epistemology. However, reasons are making a comeback in epistemology, both in general and in the context of the Gettier problem. There are two main aims of this paper. First, I will argue against a natural defeat based resolution of the Gettier problem. Second, I will defend my own defeat based solution. This solution appeals to a modal anti-luck condition. I will argue that this condition captures anti-luck intuitions and has virtues that rival modal anti-luck conditions lack. N.B. This paper is a descendent of and supersedes 'Fake Barns, Defeat, and Dogmatism'.
On Andrew Reisner and Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen's (ed.) Reasons for Belief
On John Gibbons' The Norm of Belief
From Independence to Conciliationism: An Obituary
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2014 Conciliationists about peer disagreement think that when we (find out that we) disagree with an epistemic peer about p, we should significantly change our view about whether p. Some conciliationists argue for the view by appealing to an independence principle. Independence principles hold that when evaluating the epistemic credentials of someone else's belief about p, you mustn't rely on the reasoning that led to your original view about p. In this paper I show that the independence principles appealed to by conciliationists are false. I then argue that weakened principles are either false or unmotivated (or both). Normative Ethics
On Simon May's Love: A New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion
A review of Simon May's book Love: A New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion
Impartiality, Eudaimonic Encroachment, and the Boundaries of Morality
Many hold that morality is essentially impartial. Many also hold that partiality is justified. Susan Wolf argues that these commitments push us towards downgrading morality's practical significance. Here I argue that there is a way of pushing morality's boundaries in a partialist direction in a way that respects Wolf's insights.
Justifying Partiality
It's an undeniable fact about our moral lives that we are partial towards certain people and projects. Despite this, it has traditionally been very hard to morally justify partiality. In this paper I defend a novel partialist theory. The context of the paper is the debate between three different views of how partiality is justified. According to the first view, partiality is justified by facts about our ground projects. According to the second view, partiality is justified by facts about our relationships with the things that we are partial towards. And according to the third view, partiality is justified by facts about the things that we are partial towards. I argue that all three views contain part of the truth. We can see this by adopting a more sophisticated view of the weight of reasons. Once we do this, it will be clear that both facts about individuals and facts about relationships play a role in explaining why we often have stronger reason to act well towards those things we are partial towards. Further, I argue, facts about projects help explain why facts about relationships play the role that they do in determining the strength of our reasons.
On Simon Keller's Partiality
Knowledgeable Moral Mathematics (with Samuel Fullhart)
Manuscript Act-consequentialism has a difficult time explaining why individuals ought to contribute to obligatory group actions in certain collective action problems. This is because usually the actions of individuals don't make a difference. Some consequentialists have gone decision-theoretic in light of this. According to these theorists, individuals ought to do their part because it maximizes expected value. In this paper we critically examine one popular argument in this vein. This argument maintains that refraining from purchasing chicken maximizes expected value because, for the average consumer, there is some chance that refraining will trigger a production threshold that saves many chicken lives. Our attack is internal. We argue that, given a plausible knowledge-first decision theory, it is not the case that refraining maximizes expected value. We offer three main reasons. First, the average consumer is in a position to know that they won't trigger thresholds. Second, even if they aren't in such a position, given what they know, they should not distribute their confidence evenly over all of the possibilities. Finally, given what they know, they shouldn't expect that the number of chickens saved will be as great as advocates of the argument assume. This greatly complicates the decision-theoretic reaction. Draft available upon request.
Bad for Herself and For Others: The Vices of a Consequentialist Character
Manuscript Impartial consequentialism holds that acts are morally permitted only when they sufficiently promote impartial value. Two prominent objections to views of this type are the over demandingness objection on the one hand and the character based objection on the other. The over demandiness objection holds that impartial consequentialism is implausible because it predicts morality requires too much of us. The character based objection holds that impartial consequentialism is implausible because it requires us to have a bad character. This is because, roughly, it seems to require us to seek the promotion of the impartial good, all else--including our friends, spouses, and colleagues--be damned. This paper has three aims. First, I will ague for a new version of the character based objection to impartial consequentialism. Second, I will argue that the moral psychology used to motivate this character based objection reveals the importance of a partial psychology to the welfare of creatures like us. Third, I will use this result to argue that impartial consequentialism is over demanding insofar as it requires us to have impartial psychologies. Thus, it turns out that by thinking about the best version of the character based objection will lead us to a plausible version of the over demandingness objection. Draft available upon request. Aesthetics
In Search of Lost Principles: Generic Generalism in Ethics and Aesthetics
forthcoming in Philosophical Studies I defend the view that there are generic truths about ethics and aesthetics that are ethical and aesthetic principles. You can find the current version here:
The Nature of Perceptual Expertise and the Rationality of Criticism
One of the central tasks of the epistemology of aesthetics is accounting for the rationality of criticism. In this paper I defend a new theory of the epistemology of critical activity that solves the central puzzle. I do this in three stages. First, I defend an account of aesthetic perception. Second, I argue that the resulting epistemology of aesthetic perceptual judgments is non-foundational. Third, I show how this resolves the central puzzle.
On the Rational Power of Aesthetic Testimony
In this paper I defend a moderately optimistic view about the rational power of aesthetic testimony. The context is Daniel Whiting's recent defense of pessimism about aesthetic testimony. I show that the data he appeals to can plausibly be explained by a more moderate view.
Knowing What It's Like: How To Save the Acquaintance Principle from Copies, the Imagination, and Abstracta
It's a truism in the epistemology of aesthetics that paradigmatic aesthetic knowledge requires acquaintance--call this the Acquaintance Principle. Like most truisms in philosophy, the Acquaintance Principle has been subject to serious criticism. In this paper I argue that three of the most formidable challenges are fueled by the assumption that one must be acquainted with the art object that one's judgment is about. I argue further that we can overcome these three challenges by adopting a different view, which says we are merely required to be acquainted with the relevant properties of the object. Since other objects can share properties with the original, this view allows us to avoid the problems.
Draft available upon request. Philosophy of Action
The Importance of Being Rational, chapters 5 and 6.
Oxford University Press, 2018 In this book I defend the claim that what it is to be rational is to correctly respond to the objective normative reasons you possess. Chapters 5 and 6 focus on issues in philosophy of action. Chapter 5 defends a view of what it is to react for a normative reason. Chapter 6 defends disjunctivism about reacting for reasons. It also defends a new view of reacting for motivating reasons and argues that this view can solve the deviant causal chain problem for causal views of reacting for motivating reasons. On John Hyman's Knowledge, Action, and Will
European Journal of Philosophy, 2017 |