Here are some papers I am working on. Please do contact me if you are interested in these topics and you'd like to discuss them or see a draft of my work.
Aesthetic Interaction in Interpersonal relations
Presentation at the 2021 Joint Session available here.
Abstract: It is common both in philosophy and in everyday life to suppose that a person’s beauty is something static and passive, to be observed, much as one might observe a painting. But the way in which people bear many of their aesthetic qualities to one another is such as to call for a personal, engaged response. In this paper I argue that recognising the role of aesthetic interaction in our social lives makes sense of something that otherwise seems problematic, namely the importance that we attach to people’s aesthetic qualities.
The peculiar allure of another's aesthetic worldview
I have two goals in this paper. The first is to argue that a distinctive kind of respect that is highly valuable to many types of interpersonal relationship is constituted by interest in the aesthetic worldview of the other person (Interest, for short). In developing this claim, I will highlight the contrast between interest in the aesthetic aspect of the other’s worldview, and interest in its other aspects – ethical, political, religious, and so on. Moreover, I will suggest that just as Interest constitutes a valuable form of respect, its absence can constitute a potent form of disrespect (though Interest is not morally obligatory). As a final strand of my analysis, I will highlight the importance of Interest for joint aesthetic experience.
Having established the value of Interest for interpersonal relationships, my second goal is to raise a question. Namely, what is it about aesthetic worldviews that explains the value of Interest? This question, I think, opens a new and promising route for exploring the significance of aesthetics for interpersonal life. In raising the question, I sketch two incompatible candidate answers: a person-centred answer, drawn from recent work by Nick Riggle; and a world-centred answer, drawn from some remarks by Iris Murdoch. Which of these lines we follow has far-reaching ramifications for how we conceive of aesthetics in social interaction.
Paper about aesthetics and reasons for love
This paper is about the similarity between the appreciation of a piece of art, such as a cherished music album, and the loving appreciation of a person whom one knows well. In philosophical discussion about the rationality of love, the Qualities View (QV) says that love can be justified by reference to the qualities of the beloved. I argue that the oft-rehearsed trading-up objection fails to undermine the QV. The problems typically identified by the objection arise from the idea that love-worthy qualities could be coarse-grained, when in fact they must be fine-grained. The analogy with appreciation of aesthetic qualities helps to draw out this point. Once the fine-grained nature of love-worthy qualities is properly understood, it is clear that critics of the QV cannot rely on the trading-up objection to motivate its rejection. Moreover, the paper’s core argument helps to illuminate the persistently aesthetic nature of interpersonal affections.
Paper on relational reasons [title redacted while under review]
Relational Deontic views are a family of views united around the claim that moral obligations are grounded in duties that people owe to one another. Proponents of such views include Jay Wallace (2019), Ariel Zylberman (2019), and Stephen Darwall (2006, 2013), as well as recent advocates for the moral philosophies of J.G. Fichte, Emmanuel Levinas, and K.E. Løgstrup. In this paper I will press an objection to Relational Deontic views. In short, I object to the way in which the Relational Deontic views make it seem as though all interpersonal practical relations are about obligations. Our practical lives are relational in ways that are broader – and possibly deeper – than the obligations that we owe to one another.
Handout available here.
Paper on agapic love [title redacted while under review]
Abstract: Inthis essay, I will advance a view about the nature of agapic love. The claim I will defend is that agape is a kind of loving openness. Agape, I argue, is similar to personal love in that it is rational in form: it requires justification by reference to the love-worthiness of the other. But it is dissimilar from personal love in that this justification must come retroactively. I will animate a tension within the very idea of agapic love by first advancing an attractive view – drawing from Martin Buber – according to which agape requires disregarding individuating characteristics of the other (§1), and then by drawing from Simone Weil to advance an exactly contrary view (§2). Despite this tension, I will explore the deeper compatibility of the two views and argue that they can be construed as complimentary episodes that together comprise the stance of agapic love (§3).
Paper about interpersonal aesthetics [title redacted while under review]
When people speak to one another they are sensitive to the music of one another’s voices. As well as using musical devices like intonation, rhythm, timbre, and dynamic variation to aid our interlocutors in parsing the words that we utter, such qualities imbue our speech with additional meaning. For instance, such qualities are vehicles for the communication of a speaker’s emotions. Moreover, while some of these extra-linguistic meanings are recognised and decoded by our addressees, forming one layer of pragmatically communicated meaning, others are not. That is, sometimes our speech bears certain musical characteristics – certain melodies, rhythms, tempi, and so on – which are not even intended to convey any specific information by the speaker. In this work, I draw attention to this underlying aesthetic quality of the soundscape – the musical context – within which our verbal communication is set. I argue that we implicitly appraise the aesthetic qualities of one another's voices. I go on to consider how such appraisals might figure in one's practical relations to others - that is, whether implicit aesthetic judgements can play a role in determining reasons for acting in others' interests.
Conference slides available here
Paper about second-person reasons [title redacted while under review]
Abstract: There is a tradition of thought, beginning with German Idealist philosophers Fichte and Feuerbach, passing through phenomenologists and existentialists such as Levinas, Buber, and Løpstrup and arriving at contemporary ethicists such as Thompson and Darwall. This tradition have all endeavoured to explain the practical significance of the second-person relation. That is, they have all offered accounts of how one's practical reasoning is altered by one's relation to another as an I to a you. What's more, the accounts that have been offered are all what I call structural accounts. They posit that the second-person relation affects the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering into second-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, but by changing what reasons can become available. Second-person relations make possible the emergence of an wide variety of different kinds of practical reasons. Recognising this takes away the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of such second-personal relations.
Aesthetic Interaction in Interpersonal relations
Presentation at the 2021 Joint Session available here.
Abstract: It is common both in philosophy and in everyday life to suppose that a person’s beauty is something static and passive, to be observed, much as one might observe a painting. But the way in which people bear many of their aesthetic qualities to one another is such as to call for a personal, engaged response. In this paper I argue that recognising the role of aesthetic interaction in our social lives makes sense of something that otherwise seems problematic, namely the importance that we attach to people’s aesthetic qualities.
The peculiar allure of another's aesthetic worldview
I have two goals in this paper. The first is to argue that a distinctive kind of respect that is highly valuable to many types of interpersonal relationship is constituted by interest in the aesthetic worldview of the other person (Interest, for short). In developing this claim, I will highlight the contrast between interest in the aesthetic aspect of the other’s worldview, and interest in its other aspects – ethical, political, religious, and so on. Moreover, I will suggest that just as Interest constitutes a valuable form of respect, its absence can constitute a potent form of disrespect (though Interest is not morally obligatory). As a final strand of my analysis, I will highlight the importance of Interest for joint aesthetic experience.
Having established the value of Interest for interpersonal relationships, my second goal is to raise a question. Namely, what is it about aesthetic worldviews that explains the value of Interest? This question, I think, opens a new and promising route for exploring the significance of aesthetics for interpersonal life. In raising the question, I sketch two incompatible candidate answers: a person-centred answer, drawn from recent work by Nick Riggle; and a world-centred answer, drawn from some remarks by Iris Murdoch. Which of these lines we follow has far-reaching ramifications for how we conceive of aesthetics in social interaction.
Paper about aesthetics and reasons for love
This paper is about the similarity between the appreciation of a piece of art, such as a cherished music album, and the loving appreciation of a person whom one knows well. In philosophical discussion about the rationality of love, the Qualities View (QV) says that love can be justified by reference to the qualities of the beloved. I argue that the oft-rehearsed trading-up objection fails to undermine the QV. The problems typically identified by the objection arise from the idea that love-worthy qualities could be coarse-grained, when in fact they must be fine-grained. The analogy with appreciation of aesthetic qualities helps to draw out this point. Once the fine-grained nature of love-worthy qualities is properly understood, it is clear that critics of the QV cannot rely on the trading-up objection to motivate its rejection. Moreover, the paper’s core argument helps to illuminate the persistently aesthetic nature of interpersonal affections.
Paper on relational reasons [title redacted while under review]
Relational Deontic views are a family of views united around the claim that moral obligations are grounded in duties that people owe to one another. Proponents of such views include Jay Wallace (2019), Ariel Zylberman (2019), and Stephen Darwall (2006, 2013), as well as recent advocates for the moral philosophies of J.G. Fichte, Emmanuel Levinas, and K.E. Løgstrup. In this paper I will press an objection to Relational Deontic views. In short, I object to the way in which the Relational Deontic views make it seem as though all interpersonal practical relations are about obligations. Our practical lives are relational in ways that are broader – and possibly deeper – than the obligations that we owe to one another.
Handout available here.
Paper on agapic love [title redacted while under review]
Abstract: Inthis essay, I will advance a view about the nature of agapic love. The claim I will defend is that agape is a kind of loving openness. Agape, I argue, is similar to personal love in that it is rational in form: it requires justification by reference to the love-worthiness of the other. But it is dissimilar from personal love in that this justification must come retroactively. I will animate a tension within the very idea of agapic love by first advancing an attractive view – drawing from Martin Buber – according to which agape requires disregarding individuating characteristics of the other (§1), and then by drawing from Simone Weil to advance an exactly contrary view (§2). Despite this tension, I will explore the deeper compatibility of the two views and argue that they can be construed as complimentary episodes that together comprise the stance of agapic love (§3).
Paper about interpersonal aesthetics [title redacted while under review]
When people speak to one another they are sensitive to the music of one another’s voices. As well as using musical devices like intonation, rhythm, timbre, and dynamic variation to aid our interlocutors in parsing the words that we utter, such qualities imbue our speech with additional meaning. For instance, such qualities are vehicles for the communication of a speaker’s emotions. Moreover, while some of these extra-linguistic meanings are recognised and decoded by our addressees, forming one layer of pragmatically communicated meaning, others are not. That is, sometimes our speech bears certain musical characteristics – certain melodies, rhythms, tempi, and so on – which are not even intended to convey any specific information by the speaker. In this work, I draw attention to this underlying aesthetic quality of the soundscape – the musical context – within which our verbal communication is set. I argue that we implicitly appraise the aesthetic qualities of one another's voices. I go on to consider how such appraisals might figure in one's practical relations to others - that is, whether implicit aesthetic judgements can play a role in determining reasons for acting in others' interests.
Conference slides available here
Paper about second-person reasons [title redacted while under review]
Abstract: There is a tradition of thought, beginning with German Idealist philosophers Fichte and Feuerbach, passing through phenomenologists and existentialists such as Levinas, Buber, and Løpstrup and arriving at contemporary ethicists such as Thompson and Darwall. This tradition have all endeavoured to explain the practical significance of the second-person relation. That is, they have all offered accounts of how one's practical reasoning is altered by one's relation to another as an I to a you. What's more, the accounts that have been offered are all what I call structural accounts. They posit that the second-person relation affects the structure of practical reasoning. In this paper, I offer an alternative, substantive account. That is, I argue that entering into second-personal relations with others does indeed affect one's practical reasoning, but it does this not by altering the structure of one's agential thought, but by changing what reasons can become available. Second-person relations make possible the emergence of an wide variety of different kinds of practical reasons. Recognising this takes away the appeal of the traditional, structural accounts of the practical significance of such second-personal relations.
