Book projects in progress:
Value Is Real
In this book, I draw on and rework ideas from the philosophy of mind in order to make a novel positive argument for value realism. The book’s central move is to ask the reader to consider what she herself is up to when she is trying, on some occasion, to decide what to do. She will find, I argue, that what she is doing is looking outwards, towards the world conceived as a place laden with value, and that it is this value by which she seeks to be guided in her deliberations. Making this case requires a (re)consideration of the various psychological attitudes—desires, beliefs, evaluative judgements, and so on—that have typically stood as the basis for anti-realist accounts of value, and that might be thought to play a normatively grounding role in one’s deliberation about what to do. From your own point of view, I argue, these attitudes are not first and foremost descriptive psychological facts about a person (a person who happens to be you). Instead, they are your finding something in the world to be a certain way—desirable, say, or valuable. To borrow a term from the philosophy of mind literature that inspired this argument, these attitudes are ‘transparent’, from the first-person perspective, to the world. From the bearer’s point of view, these attitudes play the role they do in deliberation only because and insofar as they are a recognition of something in the world having normative import. My reader, I argue, is thus in a sense already a realist about value.
Nietzsche's Critique of Pity (under contract with Cambridge University Press for ‘Cambridge Elements’ series)
Nietzsche’s critique of Mitleid—pity or compassion—is, by his own account, the initiating move in his broad-scale critique of morality. This aspect of Nietzsche’s project, developed most extensively in his early and middle-period works, has however received relatively little scholarly attention. In this book, I offer a critical overview of the main attempts to grapple with Nietzsche’s critique of pity, revealing their strengths and weaknesses, and using this as a starting point to develop a more comprehensive and satisfying reading. I explore how Nietzsche’s critique of pity makes contact in interesting ways with ideas developed by other historical figures, and show how this part of his earlier thought connects to the morality critique of his mature work. Throughout the book, I aim to bring to light the ways in which Nietzsche’s critique of pity is grounded in concerns that are recognizably ethical in nature. As a result, this critique, and the broader critique of morality that grows out of it, are of more than merely historical scholarly interest. Nietzsche’s ethical thought, though challenging and radically revisionary in many ways, is founded on ideas that we have reason to take extremely seriously.
In this book, I draw on and rework ideas from the philosophy of mind in order to make a novel positive argument for value realism. The book’s central move is to ask the reader to consider what she herself is up to when she is trying, on some occasion, to decide what to do. She will find, I argue, that what she is doing is looking outwards, towards the world conceived as a place laden with value, and that it is this value by which she seeks to be guided in her deliberations. Making this case requires a (re)consideration of the various psychological attitudes—desires, beliefs, evaluative judgements, and so on—that have typically stood as the basis for anti-realist accounts of value, and that might be thought to play a normatively grounding role in one’s deliberation about what to do. From your own point of view, I argue, these attitudes are not first and foremost descriptive psychological facts about a person (a person who happens to be you). Instead, they are your finding something in the world to be a certain way—desirable, say, or valuable. To borrow a term from the philosophy of mind literature that inspired this argument, these attitudes are ‘transparent’, from the first-person perspective, to the world. From the bearer’s point of view, these attitudes play the role they do in deliberation only because and insofar as they are a recognition of something in the world having normative import. My reader, I argue, is thus in a sense already a realist about value.
Nietzsche's Critique of Pity (under contract with Cambridge University Press for ‘Cambridge Elements’ series)
Nietzsche’s critique of Mitleid—pity or compassion—is, by his own account, the initiating move in his broad-scale critique of morality. This aspect of Nietzsche’s project, developed most extensively in his early and middle-period works, has however received relatively little scholarly attention. In this book, I offer a critical overview of the main attempts to grapple with Nietzsche’s critique of pity, revealing their strengths and weaknesses, and using this as a starting point to develop a more comprehensive and satisfying reading. I explore how Nietzsche’s critique of pity makes contact in interesting ways with ideas developed by other historical figures, and show how this part of his earlier thought connects to the morality critique of his mature work. Throughout the book, I aim to bring to light the ways in which Nietzsche’s critique of pity is grounded in concerns that are recognizably ethical in nature. As a result, this critique, and the broader critique of morality that grows out of it, are of more than merely historical scholarly interest. Nietzsche’s ethical thought, though challenging and radically revisionary in many ways, is founded on ideas that we have reason to take extremely seriously.
Published and forthcoming research papers:
‘Worlds Collided: Love as Seeing and Seeing-With’, forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics
‘Beyond the Birth: Middle and Late Nietzsche on the Value of Tragedy’, Inquiry 66 (7): 1283–1306, 2023
[find online]
‘Value Realism and Idiosyncrasy’ (runner-up for the Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics), Oxford Studies in Metaethics 18: 24–46, 2023
‘Pulling Oneself up by the Hair: Understanding Nietzsche on the Freedom of the Will’, Inquiry 61(1): 82–99, 2017
[find online]
‘Why Sibley is (probably) not a particularist after all’, British Journal of Aesthetics 51(2): 201–212, 2011
[find online]
‘Beyond the Birth: Middle and Late Nietzsche on the Value of Tragedy’, Inquiry 66 (7): 1283–1306, 2023
[find online]
‘Value Realism and Idiosyncrasy’ (runner-up for the Marc Sanders Prize in Metaethics), Oxford Studies in Metaethics 18: 24–46, 2023
‘Pulling Oneself up by the Hair: Understanding Nietzsche on the Freedom of the Will’, Inquiry 61(1): 82–99, 2017
[find online]
‘Why Sibley is (probably) not a particularist after all’, British Journal of Aesthetics 51(2): 201–212, 2011
[find online]
Research papers in progress:
‘The Guise of the Good and the Agential Perspective on Action’ (committed to edited collection in honor of Joseph Raz)
‘Normativity from the First-Person Perspective’ (commissioned chapter for edited collection on normative realism, editors Paul Boghossian and Chris Peacocke; draft available upon request)
A paper on deliberation and value realism (under review)
A paper on love and desire (in progress)
A paper on moral disagreement (in progress)
‘Normativity from the First-Person Perspective’ (commissioned chapter for edited collection on normative realism, editors Paul Boghossian and Chris Peacocke; draft available upon request)
A paper on deliberation and value realism (under review)
A paper on love and desire (in progress)
A paper on moral disagreement (in progress)
Encyclopedia entries, critical commentaries, and reviews:
* = invited, † = peer reviewed
Review of Mattia Riccardi, Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 54 (2): 203–209, 2023 *
[find online]
Nietzsche and “we knowers”: Comments on Reginster's The Will to Nothingness (book symposium), European Journal of Philosophy 31(2): 509–515, 2023 *
[find online]
Review of Guy Elgat, Being Guilty: Freedom, Responsibility, and Conscience in German Philosophy from Kant to Heidegger, Ethics 133(4): 620–625, 2023 *
[find online]
Review of Andrew Huddleston, Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture, Mind 132(525): 243–251, 2023 *
[find online]
‘Nietzsche’s Ethics’, Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy, 2022 * †
Review of Peter J. Conradi, Iris Murdoch – A Writer at War, Oxonian Review 12(4) , 2010 *
Review of Mattia Riccardi, Nietzsche’s Philosophical Psychology, Journal of Nietzsche Studies 54 (2): 203–209, 2023 *
[find online]
Nietzsche and “we knowers”: Comments on Reginster's The Will to Nothingness (book symposium), European Journal of Philosophy 31(2): 509–515, 2023 *
[find online]
Review of Guy Elgat, Being Guilty: Freedom, Responsibility, and Conscience in German Philosophy from Kant to Heidegger, Ethics 133(4): 620–625, 2023 *
[find online]
Review of Andrew Huddleston, Nietzsche on the Decadence and Flourishing of Culture, Mind 132(525): 243–251, 2023 *
[find online]
‘Nietzsche’s Ethics’, Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy, 2022 * †
Review of Peter J. Conradi, Iris Murdoch – A Writer at War, Oxonian Review 12(4) , 2010 *
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