Publications
The Normative Power of Resolutions (forthcoming in The Monist)
This article argues that resolutions are reason-giving: when an agent resolves to φ, she incurs an additional normative reason to φ. Resolution-making is therefore a normative power: an ability we have to alter our normative circumstances through sheer acts of will. I argue that the reasons we incur from forming resolutions are importantly similar to the reasons we incur from making promises. My account explains why it can be rational for an agent to act on a past resolution even if temptation causes a shift in her preferences and even her judgment about what to do, and offers a response to a common objection to the normativity of resolutions known as the bootstrapping problem, on which if resolutions were reason-giving, they would problematically allow us to bootstrap any action into rationality simply by resolving to perform it.
- Here is the penultimate draft.
Counterfactual Reasoning in Art Criticism (The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, 2022)
When we evaluate artworks, we often point to what an artist could have done or what a work could have been in order to say something about the work as it actually is. Call this counterfactual reasoning in art criticism. On my account, counterfactual claims about artworks involve comparative aesthetic judgments between actual artworks and hypothetical variations of those works. The practice of imagining what an artwork could have been is critically useful because it can help us understand how artworks achieve specific aesthetic effects. I conclude by responding to an objection to my account on the basis that it violates the widely accepted acquaintance principle in aesthetics, on which aesthetic judgments must be based on firsthand perceptual encounters with their objects.
Current projects
[Title redacted for review]
Draft available upon request
This article argues that integrity requires living up to the requirements of our core commitments. I argue that an agent who violates the requirements of her core commitments and ceases to be integrated suffers a practical death: an experience characterized by psychological crisis, loss of direction, and a diminished capacity for instrumental reasoning. Because these conditions undermine self-governance, the account I offer illuminates an important but underexplored connection between integrity and self-governance.
This article argues that integrity requires living up to the requirements of our core commitments. I argue that an agent who violates the requirements of her core commitments and ceases to be integrated suffers a practical death: an experience characterized by psychological crisis, loss of direction, and a diminished capacity for instrumental reasoning. Because these conditions undermine self-governance, the account I offer illuminates an important but underexplored connection between integrity and self-governance.
[Title redacted for review]
Draft available upon request
Morally valid consent is consent that succeeds in generating a moral permission. Some widely accepted conditions for morally valid consent include that it be informed and that it be uncoerced. In this article, I argue that morally valid consent must also be revocable. I propose two arguments against irrevocability. On the argument from informed consent, irrevocable consent lacks morally validity because it cannot be sufficiently informed. On the argument from bodily integrity, irrevocable consent lacks morally validity because we do not have the authority to deny our future selves the ability to protect our bodily integrity. I explain why the argument from bodily integrity captures unique problems raised by irrevocable consent and illuminates an undertheorized distinction between autonomy and bodily integrity.
Morally valid consent is consent that succeeds in generating a moral permission. Some widely accepted conditions for morally valid consent include that it be informed and that it be uncoerced. In this article, I argue that morally valid consent must also be revocable. I propose two arguments against irrevocability. On the argument from informed consent, irrevocable consent lacks morally validity because it cannot be sufficiently informed. On the argument from bodily integrity, irrevocable consent lacks morally validity because we do not have the authority to deny our future selves the ability to protect our bodily integrity. I explain why the argument from bodily integrity captures unique problems raised by irrevocable consent and illuminates an undertheorized distinction between autonomy and bodily integrity.
[Title redacted for review]
Draft available upon request
Emotional blunting – restrictions in the range and intensity of the emotions one is able to feel – is a common side effect of antidepressants. In this paper, I argue that emotional blunting imposes an aesthetic cost on those who experience it as a side effect of antidepressants. I survey the scientific literature suggesting that depression is caused in large part by deficient emotion regulation, which is improved with antidepressants. However, the very same mechanisms hypothesized to make antidepressants effective at treating depression also cause emotional blunting. After explaining affect’s crucial role in aesthetic appreciation, I argue that emotional intensity and volatility enhance one’s appreciative capacities; this is why emotional blunting is aesthetically costly. The view I offer has broader implications for philosophical aesthetics, as it sheds light on the important but undertheorized role of affect in aesthetic appreciation.
Emotional blunting – restrictions in the range and intensity of the emotions one is able to feel – is a common side effect of antidepressants. In this paper, I argue that emotional blunting imposes an aesthetic cost on those who experience it as a side effect of antidepressants. I survey the scientific literature suggesting that depression is caused in large part by deficient emotion regulation, which is improved with antidepressants. However, the very same mechanisms hypothesized to make antidepressants effective at treating depression also cause emotional blunting. After explaining affect’s crucial role in aesthetic appreciation, I argue that emotional intensity and volatility enhance one’s appreciative capacities; this is why emotional blunting is aesthetically costly. The view I offer has broader implications for philosophical aesthetics, as it sheds light on the important but undertheorized role of affect in aesthetic appreciation.
Starting Over
Draft available upon request
After a period of depression or personal turmoil, people sometimes express a desire for a "fresh start" or "clean slate." People suffering from internal conflict suddenly cast aside their commitments, sever ties with people they know, and go on adventures around the world. This paper uses the phenomenon of "starting over" as a basis for exploring the power we have to change the commitments that make us who we are through a process that I call practical restructuring. Because starting over is a particularly effective way of resolving inner conflicts through practical restructuring, agents in the grip of internal conflict often desire to start over.
After a period of depression or personal turmoil, people sometimes express a desire for a "fresh start" or "clean slate." People suffering from internal conflict suddenly cast aside their commitments, sever ties with people they know, and go on adventures around the world. This paper uses the phenomenon of "starting over" as a basis for exploring the power we have to change the commitments that make us who we are through a process that I call practical restructuring. Because starting over is a particularly effective way of resolving inner conflicts through practical restructuring, agents in the grip of internal conflict often desire to start over.
Snitching
Draft available upon request
This paper provides an account of the wrongfulness of snitching: providing “the authorities” with information that may be used against a community to which the snitch herself belongs. This paper argues that snitching is wrongful because it involves providing the authorities with information that threatens minority groups we have reason to protect. I call the minority groups of interest to my argument moral subcultures. A moral subculture is a community where some prevailing, mainstream norms are suspended, creating a space where its members’ interests can be voiced and supported. Moral subcultures are important; among other things, they are essential to moral progress and to the wellbeing of oppressed people. We have good reason to want many moral subcultures to thrive and to operate with a high degree of autonomy. And insofar as snitching threatens the autonomy of moral subcultures worth protecting, snitching is wrongful.
This paper provides an account of the wrongfulness of snitching: providing “the authorities” with information that may be used against a community to which the snitch herself belongs. This paper argues that snitching is wrongful because it involves providing the authorities with information that threatens minority groups we have reason to protect. I call the minority groups of interest to my argument moral subcultures. A moral subculture is a community where some prevailing, mainstream norms are suspended, creating a space where its members’ interests can be voiced and supported. Moral subcultures are important; among other things, they are essential to moral progress and to the wellbeing of oppressed people. We have good reason to want many moral subcultures to thrive and to operate with a high degree of autonomy. And insofar as snitching threatens the autonomy of moral subcultures worth protecting, snitching is wrongful.
Early stages
Here are various projects I am working on but do not have drafts available to circulate. However, I would love to discuss them with anyone who is interested!
- Safe Love: a paper that defends a safety condition on love, such that a person loves someone only if she could not have easily not loved them.
- The Unthinkable and the Unwillable: a paper that explores the implications of the distinction between actions that are unthinkable and actions that are unwillable.
- On Being Inconsolable: a paper that provides an account of what makes something a consolation, and why we sometimes find ourselves to be inconsolable.
- On Mandatory Reporting: a paper that locates mandatory reporting on college campuses within a broader pattern of the politicization of sexual assault.
- Justice Within the Bounds of Injustice: a paper that considers whether one can consistently hold anti-carceral beliefs and believe that some wrongdoers should be punished in the existing carceral system.
Dissertation
I defended my dissertation, entitled "Essays on Integrated Agency," in July 2022 at the University of Michigan. The dissertation offers an account of the role of integrity in our agency. I argue that the unification of the various facets of our agency into a coherent whole is essential for our self-governance: our ability to act in ways that reflect what we stand for. When we are fragmented–when our commitments conflict, or we otherwise fail to live up to what they require of us–we experience inner conflicts that hinder our ability to be self-governing. Here is the dissertation (but note that each of the papers in the dissertation have changed substantially since my defense! I am happy to provide up-to-date versions of the papers upon request).