In the Works

Adopting an objective attitude has been understood as believing its subject not to be morally responsible, as being determined by factors beyond one’s control, or as something which can be mechanistically understood. However, objectivity can be taken up as a practical tool without forming any new beliefs about its subject—without simply regarding someone as not responsible or not deserving the reactive attitudes, as externally determined, or as a mere object. I suggest that something more fundamental unites these common forms of objectivity; taking up an objective attitude involves a shift in perspective from our natural, reactive standpoint to a telic point of view involving the other as an instrumentalfeature of one’s situation. Focusing on this central, perspectival shift illuminates why one might be unable to exit an objective stance, even after one’s reasons for its adoption are wholly removed. I suggest that we can become ‘stuck’ in an objective attitude towards someone after its repeated adoption as a practical tool for refuge or management. Taking up an objective stance can be a treacherous gamble: it can provide an invaluable resource for managing interpersonal conflict but simultaneously cancel any chance of the relationship’s survival.

Two of anger’s most compelling advocates, Amia Srinivasan and Christopher Franklin, have defended anger on the grounds that it is a fitting or apt response to injustice; even decisively counterproductive anger can be intrinsically valuable. Srinivasan and Franklin argued that anger alone can fully appreciate injustice and value a wronged party. They claimed that grief and disappointment cannot do this work and are thus intrinsically deficient as emotional responses. I argue that grief and disappointment can indeed fully appreciate injustice and value the wronged. I argue, contra Srinivasan, that disappointment can respond to normative violations and is agent-oriented—it can respond to the intentionality of actions as well as to the raw harm produced. Against Franklin’s conception of grief, I argue that an aggrieved reaction can directly track the intentions behind an action and can directly value the wronged party. After putting forth theoretical argumentation, I put grief and disappointment to the test in three paradigmatic cases wherein anger would be a clearly fitting emotional response. I conclude that an aggrieved and disappointed response to injustice is in no way intrinsically deficient. 

While blame is a natural reaction to wrongdoing, we can also cancel our blame after learning more about why someone behaved poorly. Sometimes, we rescind blame because a valid excuse obtains; when a wrongdoer’s actions do not warrant blame because he met a common excuse. Other times, we withdraw blame because we exempt another from our reactivity altogether; one is no longer blamed for a blameworthy act because he is exempted from reactivity. I focus on one reason to withdraw blame: psychological strain. Watson suggested that every blame-cancelling psychological strain constituted an exemption. Instead, I suggest that not all blame-cancelling strains constitute temporary exemptions. I introduce two types of psychological strains: seismic strains and downhill strains. Seismic strains function by setting off a psychological eruption. They operate synchronically, inciting wanton behavior. Seeing this, we can exempt another from blame as we objectively view his behavior as the outcome of psychologically seismic activity. Downhill strains, on the other hand, function by tilting one’s mental terrain towards acting poorly. These strains act diachronically such that misdeeds take on an akratic lens; one acts poorly even while understanding that the action is wrong at a second-order level. Understanding that a downhill strain made the slope towards acting poorly too steep to resist, we suspend our blame because a valid excuse obtains: it was just too hard to resist the downhill slide. I argue that only seismic strains invite an objectivity of attitude, an exemption from the moral community, while downhill strains do not. 

I argue that Christine Korsgaard must be logically committed to holding others morally responsible, without exception, due to her views on subjective agency and her interpretation of and adherence to Kantian ethics. In response to her subjective claims, I raise a direct, phenomenological objection that demonstrates a capacity to view ourselves under the guise of determinism. I leverage P.F. Strawson’s language of reactive and objective attitudes to challenge Korsgaard’s commitment; I argue that her theoretical groundwork logically entails a ubiquitous hold on responsibility. Korsgaard explicitly shies away from this absolute conclusion for compelling reasons, but I argue those reasons are incompatible with her formal grounding. Highlighting this incompatibility leads to a presentation of two cases to which I argue the Kantian tradition, as inherited by Korsgaard, ought to capitulate. The first case is one in which I hold the objective attitude towards one who has consented to this view – whether myself or another. The second case is one in which deterministic circumstances demand the objective attitude, cases in which a key variable negates even Korsgaard’s grounds for practical responsibility. I raise a variant of Korsgaard’s central thought experiment to provide a reductio against her explicit eschewal of determinism’s relevance for responsibility judgements and make the case for a more compatibilist turn within the Kantian tradition, seen through the eyes of Korssgard’s work on responsibility. 

What does blame add to the mere belief that one committed wrong? Some philosophers have argued that blame is indeed merely a set of connected beliefs, simply reproach or sanction, or essentially a set of reactive emotions and/or attitudes. George Sher has developed an original and compelling theory of blame, arguing that blame is best understood as an interconnected belief/desire pair. On Sher’s account, blame is comprised of a belief that one acted wrongly or has a poor character paired with the desire that one had not performed the wrong action or demonstrated the poor character vice. I argue that, while it is original and compelling, Sher’s theory of blame must be revised to better align with common experience. His account, while elegant and parsimonious, cannot coherently understand exemptions and is too readily compatible with the objective attitude. I believe Sher’s account is missing a crucial element that, when added, secures a fully satisfying theory of blame. I suggest this missing element that, when added to Sher’s belief/desire pair, makes sense of exemptions, renders blame incompatible with the objective attitude, and aligns with common experience. I conclude by laying out and defending the BAD theory of blame. 

Philosophers have recently raised skeptical challenges against the existence of epistemic blame. One challenge argues that all seeming instances of epistemic blame are nothing more than moral blame in disguise. A second challenge asserts that epistemic blame is in fact nothing more than mere negative evaluation. I aim to defend the existence of epistemic blame against these two challenges. To do so, I first examine three of moral blame’s neighboring phenomena: excuses, exemptions, and the objective attitude. These phenomena are intimately connected to blame while not to negative evaluation. Moreover, it seems as though these phenomena exist in the epistemic domain. Excusing and exempting pleas are offered in response to (perceived) epistemic transgressions or poor performances, and we appear to adopt an objective stance towards those in light of their epistemic irrationality. I provide an example of each of these neighboring phenomena in action, demonstrating (a) that each case is an example of either an excuse, exemption, or objective attitude, (b) that the excuse/exemption/objective attitude targets more than negative evaluation, and (c) that each phenomenon is epistemic in nature, not moral. I argue that because these phenomena are intimately connected to blame in the moral domain, their presence in the epistemic domain provides strong reason to believe in the existence or epistemic blame as well.   

I have blamed others for their repugnant, unethical, or rationally unsupported beliefs. However, considering the irrelevant influences that affect beliefs makes it seem as though no one controls which beliefs they hold. In the burgeoning literature on epistemic blame, epistemologists have widely assumed that beliefs can be an appropriate target-class of epistemic blame: that we are right to blame others for their beliefs. In response to this agreement, I raise a concern about resultant luck from the moral responsibility literature and consider the ‘rationalist’ response to the problem: any appropriate target of blame must be immune to resultant luck. I export both the concept of resultant luck and the rationalist reply into the epistemic domain, arguing that all beliefs are inappropriate targets of epistemic blame because they are subject to epistemic resultant luck. But I do not directly advocate for an eliminativist conclusion; instead, I suggest that we may still aptly target blame at the quality of one’s inquiry: the viciousness demonstrated in an investigation, regardless of how one’s beliefs (un)luckily turn out. Thus, one can be aptly blamed for a true belief if arrived at in a vicious manner and praised for a false belief if arrived at virtuously.

Moral duty implies a set of requirements constituting a “hard line” below which we may not travel without giving up our decency. Susan Wolf, though, suggests we view duty as a dotted line, proposing that it may be reasonable to violate trivial moral duties for great personal value. I argue this view entails seeing someone who lived below the line of duty—someone who never conformed with duty for reasonable personal considerations—as morally decent. I find this conclusion implausible. I suggest three replies: (1) a hard-lined reply which lowers the line of duty, (2) a hard-lined reply which embraces the “indecent conclusion” that only the flawless are morally decent, and (3) a dotted-lined reply. I defend the third reply, accepting that one cannot decently live below the line of duty but maintaining that one may vacation below the dotted line without giving one’s decency. Moral decency should be seen as the proportion of time spent above or below the line of duty. As one traverses either side of the dotted line, moral decency hinges on the area under or above the curve. This analogy implies that both the duration of time spent under the line and the magnitude of one’s trespasses contribute to how tenuously one’s decency hangs. When we trespass below the line, even for reasonable causes, it is up to us to subsequently live above the line in such a way that swings the balance back towards decency. This revised account provides an avenue for moral redemption. 

Expressivists understand moral statements as simply expressions of attitude. On this account, moral differences seem to fall short of disagreement; however, genuine moral disagreement is a widespread phenomenon. To help expressivists make sense of disagreement, Alan Gibbard reconceptualizes moral disagreement as disagreement in plan. Because we cannot enact two different plans, differences in plan remain genuine disagreements while not involving truth-apt claims—an expression of plan cannot be true or false. In response, I first step back from public disagreement, examining the experience of private deliberation: choosing a plan for oneself. I argue that planning inexorably involves overtly truth-apt claims. I then return to public debate, arguing that the same truth-apt claims undergird interpersonal moral disagreement. While Gibbard’s reconceptualization is insightful, he unwittingly provided the means to recognize that planning essentially involves truth-apt claims about reasons. We must therefore abandon expressivist noncognitivism to fully understand the nature of moral disagreement. 

We often wonder whether an event’s supposed outcome would have occurred if that event had not occurred. On David Lewis’ account, counterfactual claims are analyzed by examining the nearest possible world in which an indeterministic miracle creates the nonoccurrence of the event. In that possible world, the event is altered by an indeterministic miracle, creating the nonoccurrence of that event. I aim to improve Lewis’ account by way of a minor modification; Lewis appears to require a transitionary period between this indeterministic miracle and the alteration of the event in question. However, it seems that truly maximizing similarity, at least in a significant subset of cases, requires the removal of Lewis’ transitionary period. In other words, the indeterministic miracle need not occur before the change in event—it can simply be the change in event. Creating this change maximizes similarity between the actual and possible worlds while, in many cases, avoiding Lewis’ worries about downstream dissimilarities or the necessity of additional ‘clean-up miracles.’ We can then analyze many counterfactual questions by a ‘copy; paste’ method: creating a copy of the actual world, miraculously changing the event in question, and then examining how doing so alters the later outcome in question by pressing ‘play’ on both worlds.