Recent and Upcoming Talks

Canadian Philosophical Association, Montréal, June 18-21, 2024. 

Britain and Ireland Association for Political Thought Conference, Jesus College, Cambridge University, Jan. 4-6, 2024. 

Canadian Philosophical Association, Toronto, May 29 - June 1, 2023. 

16th Annual Mark L. Shapiro Graduate Conference, Brown University, Feb. 18-19, 2023.

Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society Conference,  New Orleans, Nov 3-5, 2022. 

Politics and Envy: A Politics and Poetics Conference, University of Oxford, Aug 11-12, 2022.

Northeast Normativity Workshop, University of Pennsylvania, May 12-13, 2022.

Harvard University Graduate Conference in Political Theory, April 8, 2022.

Duke Graduate Conference in Political Theory, Feb. 24-25, 2022.

Work in Progress

Comments welcome! Email for a draft. 
 
Naïve Humanism

Abstract: Talk about the value of humanity is ubiquitous. We implicitly presuppose it when we talk about being one another’s equals, having equal worth, and being owed equal concern and respect. And we explicitly invoke it when we talk about human dignity, human rights, treating persons as ends in themselves, and respecting the separateness of persons. Yet while the value of humanity is seemingly everywhere, it is surprisingly hard to give a neat and tidy answer to the following simple question: What makes human beings valuable? Naïve humanists say that our bare humanity as such is valuable. Sophisticated humanists say that we are the host of some special property over and above our humanity which imbues us with value. Despite the variety of issues facing both naïve and sophisticated humanists, it is widely assumed that some form of the sophisticated humanist answer must be correct. I disagree. I develop and defend the following simple argument for naïve humanism. It is fitting to love something if and only if it is lovable. All human beings are equally lovable simply in virtue of being human. There is a necessary  connection between something’s being lovable and being valuable. All human beings are equally worthy of a distinctive kind of love. Therefore, all human beings are equally valuable in a distinctive sort of way. I conclude by sketching a surprising upshot of my view: namely, that it can solve a puzzle about the ground of our duties to the dead. 

What We Owe To The Dead

What, if anything, do we owe to the dead? The nihilist says: nothing at all, because the dead lack all the morally relevant properties of the living. The extrinsic view says: something, because the living have an interest in how we treat the dead. I reject the nihilist view. But I’m not out to convince the nihilist that they are wrong. My goal is to convince proponents of the extrinsic view to adopt the intrinsic view, which says that we ought to respect the dead, not because the living have an interest in our doing so (for they might not care at all), but rather because of some intrinsic feature of the dead. But what could the intrinsic feature be? I argue that the dead are intrinsically lovable, that being loveable necessarily entails being valuable, and that the dead are worthy of a distinctive kind of love and are thus valuable in a distinctive sort of way.

​Dignity: Metaphysical, Political, Relational, or Attitudinal? 

​It is often said that dignity is the ground of human rights. But what grounds dignity? According to proponents of the metaphysical view, dignity is grounded in our rational capacities, our capacity to value, or a disjunctive list of valuable capacities, etc. According to a rival political view, dignity is grounded in our evolving social practice of treating one another as equals or the simple political commitment to act as if we were one another’s equals. I argue that both views face serious objections. I then consider a recent alternative proposal, the relational view, and argue that we should reject it because it fails to offer an answer the question: what grounds dignity? In its place, I argue that we should adopt the attitudinal view, which says that being lovable necessarily entails being valuable, and that all human beings are fit to love in a distinctive sort of way and are thus essentially valuable in a distinctive sort of way, possessing a dignity, as it were. 

Non-Ideal Theory as Ideology

Abstract: In the wake of the non-ideal theory turn in political philosophy, few have paused to ask: Is non-ideal theory a form of ideology? And perhaps even fewer have paused to ask: Is the debate between ideal/non-ideal theorists itself a form of ideology? To the first question, I argue that non-ideal theory is ideological in virtue of the fact that it rules out more utopian ways of theorizing by methodological fiat, and in so doing, risks entrenching an unjust status quo. To the second question, I argue that the debate between ideal/non-ideal theorists is itself a form of ideology, one which serves to reinforce the status quo by convincing political philosophers/theorists that the most pressing problems are problems about what we should think about what we are doing. But this is false. An upshot of my argument is that we ought to abandon the ideal/non-ideal theory debate and address the pressing problems of political philosophy head-on in pluralist fashion, oscillating back and forth between these two modes of theorizing without a decision procedure to tell us when we should take up one perspective or the other.

Rawlsian Dignity 

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Political Obligations to The Dead

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Elusive Love

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