Research
Much of my work moves between abstract questions about the role of emotions (and desires) in moral epistemology and concrete questions about specific emotions and corresponding virtues. My long-term plan is to bring these two strands together in a book, tentatively titled Real Sentimentalism. This book will defend a comprehensive moral epistemology, one which combines sentimentalism about moral knowledge with realism about the nature of moral properties. One of my most significant inspirations for this view is the work of Anthony Ashley Cooper (1671-1713), more commonly known as the Third Earl of Shaftesbury.
Affect and Moral Epistemology
What Perceptualists Can Say About Reasons for Emotion. Accepted at Canadian Journal of Philosophy [Draft]
The Attitudinalist Challenge to Perceptualism about Emotion. Forthcoming in Dialectica. [Draft]
Moral Perception. Forthcoming in the Oxford Handbook of Metaethics, edited by David Copp and Connie Rosati [Draft available upon request]
Being Ambitious About Emotions in Value Epistemology (commentary on Ch. 7 of Christine Tappolet’s Philosophy of Emotion). Forthcoming in The Ethics Forum, book symposium edited by Rodrigo Diaz and Melissa Hernandez Parra.
Armchair Evaluative Knowledge and Sentimental Perceptualism. (Special issue on moral perception, edited by Robert Cowan) Philosophies 8 (2023): 1-20. [Final Version]
*A previous version of this manuscript has been cited under the title, "Armchair Moral Knowledge and the Perceptual Analogy."
Review of Desire as Belief: A Study of Desire, Motivation, and Rationality by Alex Gregory. in Mind (2022): 1-8. [Draft]/[Final Version]
What “Values” Are Emotions About? in Festschrift for Ronald de Sousa, eds. Julien Deonna, Christine Tappolet, & Fabrice Teroni (2022) [Final Version]
Sentimental Perceptualism and the Challenge from Cognitive Bases. with Hichem Naar. in Philosophical Studies 177.10 (2020): 3071-3096. [Draft]/[Final Version]
Desiring Under the Proper Guise. with Mark Schroeder. in Oxford Studies in Metaethics 14, ed. Russ Shafer-Landau (Oxford University Press, 2019). [Draft]/[Final Version]
On the Epistemological Significance of Value Perception. in Evaluative Perception: Aesthetic, Ethical, and Normative, eds. Anna Bergqvist and Robert Cowan (Oxford University Press, 2018). [Draft]/[Final Version]
Intellect versus Affect: Finding Leverage in an Old Debate. in Philosophical Studies 174.9 (2017): 2251-2276. [Draft]/[Final Version]
Taking the Perceptual Analogy Seriously. in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19.4 (2016): 897-915. [Draft]/[Final Version] *Winner of the 2017 Routledge, Taylor & Francis Prize awarded by the APA to the two best papers published by limited-term faculty in 2016.
Review of Emotional Insight: The Epistemic Role of Emotional Experience by Michael Brady. Ethics 125.2 (2015). [Draft]/[Final Version]
Review of Ethical Sentimentalism: New Perspectives. Eds. Remy Debes and Karsten R. Stueber. Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews. [Final Version]
Hope, Despair, Love, etc.
The Story of Romantic Love and Polyamory. with Lauren Weindling. Forthcoming in Journal of Applied Philosophy. [Final Version]
Despair. with Katie Stockdale. Accepted at Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy. [Draft]
Does Hope Require Belief? American Philosophical Quarterly 59.2 (2022): 191-199. [Draft]/[Final Version]
Hope and Enthusiasm/Excitement. with Hunter Threadgill and Philip Gable. Forthcoming in Emotion Theory: A Comprehensive Routledge Guide, ed. Andrea Scarantino.
Controlling Hope. with Katie Stockdale. Ratio 34.4 (2021): 345-354. [Final Version]
The Intersection of Hopes and Dreams. in Journal of Social Philosophy 51.4 (2020): 645-663. [Draft]/[Final Version]
Discovering the Virtue of Hope. in European Journal of Philosophy 28.3 (2020): 740-754.[Draft]/[Final Version]
Philosophy of Hope. in Historical and Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Hope, ed. Steven C. van den Heuvel (Springer, 2020). [Final Version]. The entire edited collection is available as open access here.
Finding Hope. in Canadian Journal of Philosophy 49.5 (2019): 710-729. [Draft]/[Final Version]
A Perceptual Theory of Hope. with Katie Stockdale. in Ergo, an Open Access Journal of Philosophy (2018). [Final Version]
Hope and Optimism. published by the John Templeton Foundation, 2020. [Final Version]
*The above article is a 21,000+ word overview of recent scientific and philosophical research on hope and optimism. The emphasis is on work which was done as part of the Hope & Optimism Initiative. This review has been highlighted in the Wall Street Journal (Finding Hope When Everything Feels Hopeless), Forbes (What Leaders Need To Know About The Difference Between Hope & Optimism), and Psychology Today (Hope for the Next Year and Beyond).