Overview & Essays


Overview of Current Work

I am in the final (final!) stages of completing Knowing the Normative World, which is about the epistemologies of ethics and aesthetics. You can find out more here. Next up is a series of papers about the nature and importance of beauty. This project will include a paper that motivates a pre-modern conception of beauty, a paper about the salvific power of beauty, a paper about the centrality of interpretation to aesthetic judgment, a paper about how this conception can vindicate the value of art, a paper about how, given this conception, beauty is a central ethical concept, and a paper about why, given this conception, beauty is central to inquiry and hence epistemology. 

I also have a major project ongoing about the ethics of love and respect. A major paper–‘Of Soulmates and Old Spouses’–was recently accepted by Ergo. It can be found below. This project and the project about beauty are partially converging.

Finally, Kurt Sylvan and I have a longstanding project about suspension of judgment and inquiry. We plan to write a book about these topics sometime in the coming years.

Essays

Below are some details about and links to my scholarly essays. You can find information about my books here

Metaethics & Practical Reason

In Search of Lost Principles: Generic Generalism in Ethics and Aesthetics
forthcoming in Philosophical Studies, pdf
Choosing the Right Companion: On the Authority of Epistemic, Aesthetic, and Moral Normativity
forthcoming in The Future of Normativity, Oxford University Press, pdf
Everything First
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, 2023, pdf
Precis and Replies to Bedke & Guindon, Hazlett, and Way,
Analysis, 2021, précis: pdf; replies: pdf
Precis and Replies to Schafer, Schroeder and Staffel
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2020, précis: pdf; replies: pdf
The Normativity of Rationality
in The Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason, 2020,  pdf
Reasons: Wrong, Right, Normative, Fundamental (with Kurt Sylvan)
Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, 2019, pdf
How to Learn about Aesthetics and Morality Through Acquaintance and Testimony
Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 2018, pdf
What You're Rationally Required To Do and What You Ought To Do (Are the Same Thing!)
Mind, 2017, pdf
On the Intellectual Conditions for Responsibility: Acting for the Right Reasons, Conceptualization, and Credit
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2017, pdf
The Explanatory Problem for Cognitivism about Practical Reason
in Normativity: Practical and Epistemic, 2017, Oxford University Press, pdf
Internalism about Reasons (with David Plunkett)
in The Routledge Handbook of Metaethics, 2017, pdf
An Opinionated Guide to the Weight of Reasons (with Barry Maguire)
in Weighing Reasons, Oxford University Press, 2016, pdf
On Iwao Hirose and Jonas Olson's Oxford Handbook of Value Theory (with Kurt Sylvan)
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2016, html
Acting for the Right Reasons, Abilities, and Obligation
Winner of the Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics
Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 2015, Oxford University Press, pdf
On Nomy Arpaly and Timothy Schroeder's In Praise of Desire
Ethics, 2015, pdf
On Joshua Gert's Normative Bedrock: Response-Dependence, Rationality, and Reasons
Utilitas, 2015, pdf
The Real Symmetry Problem(s) for Wide-Scope Accounts of Rationality
Philosophical Studies, 2014, pdf
The Coherent and The Rational
Analytic Philosophy, 2014, pdf
Violating Requirements, Exiting from Requirements, and The Scope of Rationality
The Philosophical Quarterly, 2011, pdf
Having Reasons and The Factoring Account
Philosophical Studies, 2010, pdf
Dancy on Acting for the Right Reason
Journal of Ethics & Social Philosophy, 2008, pdf

Epistemology

On Ernie Sosa's Epistemic Explanations
Mind, 2023, pdf
On Mark Schroeder's Reasons First
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2023, pdf
Enriched Perceptual Content and the Limits of Foundationalism
Philosophical Topics, 2022, pdf
On Suspending Properly (with Kurt Sylvan)
in Propositional and Doxastic Justification, 2022, Routledge, pdf
Beginning in Wonder: Suspensive Attitudes and Epistemic Dilemmas (with Kurt Sylvan)
forthcoming in Epistemic Dilemmas, Oxford University Press, pdf
Reasons to Suspend, Higher-Order Evidence, and Defeat (with Kurt Sylvan)
in Reasons, Justification, and Defeat, 2021, Oxford University Press, pdf
Suspension of Judgment, Rationality's Competition, and the Reach of the Epistemic
in The Ethics of Belief and Beyond. Understanding Mental Normativity, 2020, Routledge, pdf
The Vices of Perception
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2020, pdf
Prime Time (for the Basing Relation) (with Kurt Sylvan)
in Well-Founded Belief: New Essays on the Basing Relation, 2019, Routledge, pdf
Evidence and Epistemic Reasons
in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Evidence, 2024, pdf
Defeating the Externalist's Demons
forthcoming (?) in The New Evil Demon: New Essays on Knowledge, Justification, and Rationality, Oxford University Press, pdf
Epistemic Reasons, Evidence, and Defeaters
in Oxford Handbook on Reasons and Normativity, 2018, Oxford University Press, pdf
On Andrew Reisner and Asbjørn Steglich-Petersen's (ed.) Reasons for Belief
The Philosophical Quarterly, 2014, pdf
On John Gibbons' The Norm of Belief
Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 2014, html
From Independence to Conciliationism: An Obituary
Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2014, pdf

Normative Ethics

Of Soulmates and Old Spouses: How to Be a Romantic Kantian about the Ethics of Love
forthcoming in Ergo,  pdf
On Simon May's Love: A New Understanding of an Ancient Emotion
European Journal of Philosophy, 2022, pdf
Impartiality, Eudaimonic Encroachment, and the Boundaries of Morality
Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, 2022, pdf
Justifying Partiality
Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 2016,  pdf
On Simon Keller's Partiality
Mind, 2015, pdf
Knowledgeable Moral Mathematics (with Samuel Fullhart)
Manuscript under renovation
Aesthetics & Philosophy of Art

Beauty, The Very Idea
coming soon
Art as a Substitute for People
Manuscript available upon request
To Know Beauty Exactly: The Aims of Eros and Aesthetic Judgment
comissioned for British Journal of Aesthetics
What Would Beauty Need to Be Like In Order to Save the World?
comissioned for Philosophical Topics
In Search of Lost Principles: Generic Generalism in Ethics and Aesthetics
forthcoming in Philosophical Studies, pdf
Choosing the Right Companion: On the Authority of Epistemic, Aesthetic, and Moral Normativity
forthcoming in The Future of Normativity, Oxford University Press, pdf
The Nature of Perceptual Expertise and the Rationality of Criticism
Ergo, 2019, pdf
How to Learn about Aesthetics and Morality Through Acquaintance and Testimony
Oxford Studies in Metaethics, 2018, pdf
On the Rational Power of Aesthetic Testimony
British Journal of Aesthetics, 2016, pdf


University of Pennsylvania
Department of Philosophy
426 Claudia Cohen Hall
229 S 36th St.
Philadelphia, PA
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