I’m always happy to discuss any of the following; don’t hesitate to reach out.
Comparing Apples To Oranges; Is It Better To Be Human Than Otherwise?
2021 Thought (10: 1); available here
Two popular views are prima facie incompatible. First is Attributivism, whereby there is nothing better than being a good member of one’s kind; second is Hierarchy, whereby being one kind of thing can be, ceteris paribus, worse than being another. The unchallenged assumption is that those two views are at odds. As both are plausible and influential, that they conflict is a problem. In this paper, I argue that they are not incompatible, and that appearances to the contrary owe to a naïve view of kinds and kindhood, held by participants on both sides of the debate. Once we adopt a more sophisticated view of kindhood, the apparent incompatibility dissolves. Here I present such a view, and argue that Hierarchy can be captured within Attributivism, when candidate kinds share characteristic features which produce overlapping requirements of self-maintenance.
Is it Good Enough to be Good Qua Human? The Normative Independence of Attributive Goodness.
2023 Erkenntnis: available here
Prima facie the norms of natural teleology often conflict with what we ought to do morally, and rationally. Morality often seems to require rejecting the sort of vicious behaviours that can promote biological success, and we often have reasons as rational beings to do things that aren’t naturally good. That’s a problem for the influential theory of Attributivism, which dictates that what one ought to do is exhausted in satisfying the standards of one’s kind, and thus that members of natural kinds ought to do that which is naturally good. Herein I argue that Attributivism doesn’t conflict with the intuitive norms of morality, nor rationality. Arguments to the contrary stem from a failure to appreciate the degree and circumstances to which judgments of natural functionality are relativised, and how reasons, and rationality itself, can be plausibly grounded in kind-relative standards of functionality.
Normative Endurance and Getting Away With Murder.
Under Review at Philosophical Studies
For it to be the case that something ought to be done, all-things-considered, certain facts must obtain. One such fact has gone unacknowledged. This paper argues for a novel and significant constraint on attributions of all-things-considered normativity, being Normative Endurance, roughly that for it to be the case that one ought to Ф, all-things-considered, it must also be the case that failing to Ф would leave one ‘in the wrong’, being itself a state from which further specific and meaningful obligations are derived. Herein the plausibility and conceptual necessity of Normative Endurance is defended, and the effect of its explicit acknowledgment on ethics explored. That Normative Endurance has historically been overlooked is a problem, for it has significant ramifications both positive and negative, including the ominous implication that certain popular naturalist theories leave agents a ‘way out’ from intuitively ironclad ethical obligations.
What’s Wrong with Good Volcanoes? Ahistorical Function and the Grounds of Normativity.
Undergoing Late Stage Revision
Attributivism captures an agreeable idea, that what we ought to do is fundamentally and ultimately determined by facts about what we are. It’s common however for even sympathetic philosophers to object, and to add qualifications or addendums which limit that claim, or introduce additional sources of ethical norms. Typically those objections are due to the understanding that any account of function which delineates ‘natural norms’ will be ultimately overly permissive, or otherwise misattribute functionality and thus ethical normativity to incorrect behaviours. I demonstrate here that misattribution concerns are answerable, and that any further claims to restricting the Attributivism thesis owe to prejudice alone.
Teleologically-Articulated Rights – Towards the Principled Entitlement of the Environment
In Development
There exists a growing global movement to extend to the environment legal rights to autonomy and protection. That movement, however, lacks a unified philosophical basis from which the extension or recognition of such rights can be consistently and methodologically derived. Existing, dominant theories of rights are insufficient. Here I argue instead for a teleological theory of rights, which asserts that the function of rights is to promote and protect teleologically-articulated flourishing and functionality. I argue that this new account is superior to alternatives, and offers a coherent basis on which to extend rights to broad swathes of the environment.
Desire and the Guise of the Attributive Good – Explaining the Authority of Attributivism.
In Late Development
The Multiple Kinds Objection and the Failure of Attributivism.
In Late Development
You, Me, and the Tree; Socialising with the Environment.
In Development
Putting the Right Foot Forward – Practical Rationality and the Authority of Natural Goodness.
In Development
Failures of Fundamental Normativity Analysis
In Development
Why Systemic Capacity Functions are Selected Effect Functions.
In Development
Attributivism
PhD Dissertation: downloadable here
A project I would approach very differently were I to start it today, with several sections being, in my estimation, embarrassingly incorrect or misrepresentative. Still, a project I’m largely proud of, one I stand by on-the-whole, and one I still find myself returning to not infrequently, as a resource if nothing else.
Philosotree 