Overview
Much of my current research focuses on what we should want, think, and feel -- in short, the question of what attitudes we should have, what our mental lives should look like. In a series of papers, I develop a pluralistic ethics of attitudes that says that facts about which attitudes we ought to hold are a function of both considerations of fittingness (aptness, worthiness) and considerations of goodness, or benefit. Some papers from this project can be found below.
I'm also currently working on some public philosophy that looks at ethical and political issues surrounding wealth inequality. One article in progress interrogates the recurring suggestion that political and popular support for redistributive policy is based on the "bitter politics of envy". A second article, still in early days, takes a look at 'antitrust hipsterism'.
Much of my current research focuses on what we should want, think, and feel -- in short, the question of what attitudes we should have, what our mental lives should look like. In a series of papers, I develop a pluralistic ethics of attitudes that says that facts about which attitudes we ought to hold are a function of both considerations of fittingness (aptness, worthiness) and considerations of goodness, or benefit. Some papers from this project can be found below.
I'm also currently working on some public philosophy that looks at ethical and political issues surrounding wealth inequality. One article in progress interrogates the recurring suggestion that political and popular support for redistributive policy is based on the "bitter politics of envy". A second article, still in early days, takes a look at 'antitrust hipsterism'.
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Published or Forthcoming
Fitting Love and Reasons for Loving. Forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics. In which I provide an account of what kinds of considerations can make love fitting. Draft. The Fundamentality of Fit. Forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Metaethics. Winner of the Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics. In which I defend a 'fittingness-first' ontology of normativity. Penultimate draft. Normativity: Some Current Issues and Perspectives (with Alex Worsnip). Forthcoming in a special issue of Philosophical Studies devoted to papers from the 2nd Annual Chapel Hill Normativity Workshop. In which we outline and discuss the issues and perspectives contained in the papers from our workshop. Draft in 2019. Fittingness. Forthcoming in Philosophy Compass. In which I provide an opinionated guide to fittingness. Penultimate draft. In Defense of the Wrong Kind of Reason. Thought 5 (2016): 53-62. In which I argue that 'wrong-kind' reasons for attitudes are genuine reasons for attitudes. Penultimate draft. Transparency and the Ethics of Belief. Philosophical Studies 173 (2016): 1191-1201. In which I defend the existence of practical reasons for belief. Penultimate draft. Reviews Review of Expressing Our Attitudes: Explanation and Expression in Ethics, by Mark Schroeder. Ethics 127 (2017): 806-812. In which I review Mark Schroeder's collection of essays about expressivism. Penultimate draft. Work in Progress Weighing Epistemic and Practical Reasons for Belief In which I provide an account of how to weigh epistemic and practical reasons for belief against one another when the two types of reasons conflict. Draft. Consequentialism and Constraints In which I argue that consequentialists (even agent-relative ones) can't accommodate deontic constraints. Draft soon. The Politics of Envy In which I consider and counter the charge that egalitarian views of justice are motivated by envy. Draft soon. In Defense of the Right Kind of Reason In which I argue that facts that make attitudes fitting (right-kind reasons) are genuine reasons for attitudes. Draft soon. |
South Coyote Buttes, Arizona
Knik Glacier, Alaska
South Coyote Buttes, Arizona
Matanuska Glacier, Alaska
South Coyote Buttes, Arizona
Photo Credit: My dad and professional photographer Andrew K. Howard
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