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.
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.
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Published or Forthcoming
Weighing Epistemic and Practical Reasons for Belief. Forthcoming in Philosophical Studies. 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. Link. 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. Penultimate draft soon. The Fundamentality of Fit. Oxford Studies in Metaethics 14 (2019): 216-236. 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. Philosophy Compass 13 (2018): e12542. In which I provide an opinionated guide to fittingness. Link. 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. Link. Transparency and the Ethics of Belief. Philosophical Studies 173 (2016): 1191-1201. In which I defend the existence of practical reasons for belief. Link. 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. Link. Work in Progress Forever Fitting Feelings In which I argue that some feelings are fitting forever. Draft soon. 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. The Normativity of Fit In which I argue that fittingness is authoritatively and intrinsically normatively significant for the ethics of 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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