Research

Some recent papers here.

My cv is here.

Moral Responsibility and Moral Concepts

My monograph Ways to be Blameworthy: Rightness, Wrongness, and Responsibility, Oxford University Press, 2019 is about the connections between our moral concepts and our moral responsibility related concepts, praise and blameworthiness. I argue that the major normative concepts, rightness and wrongness, are subject to a responsibility constraint. But we have different concepts of 'rightness and 'wrongness' and some are more tightly bound to our responsibility concepts than other. On the other hand, concepts of moral responsibility, particularly blameworthiness and praiseworthiness, may be constrained and influenced by normative considerations.

I argue for an account of subjective obligation, according to which it is inter-defined with ordinary praise and blameworthiness. I argue that to do what is subjectively right is to be praiseworthy in the ordinary way, and to act subjectively wrongly is to be blameworthy in the ordinary way. To act subjectively rightly is to try to do well by morality, and conversely, to act wrongly is to fail to try hard enough.

However, the moral landscape is complex, and I argue that there are two other ways to be blameworthy: detached blameworthiness and extended blameworthiness, which do not require subjective wrongdoing. Detached blameworthiness corresponds to acting wrongly without knowledge of wrongdoing (hence, to acting objectively wrongly without subjective wrongness). With detached blameworthiness, we focus on the fact of objective wrongdoing, and what it means to us. With detached blame, we are not primarily concerned with the agent's quality of will, or with her ability to understand our blame. We can still blame the wrongdoer, though not in the ordinary communicative way. Finally, extended blameworthiness applies in some cases where the agent did not act subjectively wrongly, and furthermore, had no bad will in her act. Nonetheless, I argue, there are cases where an agent can and should take responsibility, and when she does, she is blameworthy in an extended sense.

Feminism

Feminist Philosophy: An Introduction, is out with Routledge. It is intended chiefly as a course textbook, but I hope that it will be of interest to a general reader too. The book is based on my own teaching, and is the sort of book I would want to have as an accompaniment to the original papers I discuss. The chapters (which can be read in any order) each focus on one broad area, and I explain the arguments and put them in context. You can see the table of contents and more at Routledge's page here.

I am also working on several papers on inter-related topics in feminist philosophy. I am interested in how sexist structures and ideologies permeate our lives: I am writing about sexual harassment, rape, and the silencing of sexual refusal, as well as false consciousness and self-objectification. I am developing interests in feminist legal theory, again, very much around issues of rape and sexual harassment.

Normative Ethics

I have interests in many other areas of moral philosophy. I have been defending consequentialism since my PhD at Reading University (supervised by Brad Hooker). My interest in consequentialism has led me in various directions, some at the core of traditional normative theory (for example, issues concerning friendship), and some further afield. For example, thinking about the demandingness of consequentialism (and it is extremely demanding), led me to think about moral motivation, and the debate between internalists and externalists about motivation. Thinking about promises, something consequentialism does not seem to be able to accommodate, made me realize that there are no such things as promises. Thinking about which values should be promoted led me to an interest in value pluralism.

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