What are the metaphysical limits of our moral theorizing? How metaphysically precise are moral theories? Is virtue ethics a viable moral view in its accounts of the moral luck in our lives or our obligations to the poor? My research articulates these questions and defends virtue ethics in both its Aristotelian and Confucian forms. Virtue ethics is a contemporary movement in ethics that defends an alternative to contemporary deontological and consequentialist moral philosophy. Some have argued, for example, that while Kantian and Utilitarian moral theory can determine right and wrong, virtue ethics either cannot possibly apply to standard cases of right and wrong or virtue ethics is too vague to determine right and wrong. My comparative ethics dissertation, co-directed by Karl Ameriks and David Solomon, compares the metaphysical vagueness of Aristotelian, Kantian, and Utilitarian moral theories, and argues that each moral theory is metaphysically indeterminate and vague (and even an omniscient being could not precisely determine right). Each theory (by its own lights) is accurate but not precise.
A number of my publications expand on my comparative ethics dissertation project on the contextual nature of moral value, its vagueness, and the metaphysical presumptions of moral theorists who believe that their moral theories are indeed precise. I gave an APA Symposium that argued that the utility of (non-actual) alternative actions were often indeterminate and vague on standard possible world semantics and in an APA Colloquium that it is vague and indeterminate what we are able to do. On both these papers, right action is vague on classical act utilitarianism. I have another paper on how the vagueness of ethics is a problem for epistemicist accounts of vagueness, since as Timothy Williamson’s.
I also have some articles published that articulate the conditions under which virtue ethics applies to our human situation. I argue that some kinds of luck are required for one to be able to properly develop, exercise, and maintain virtue, and well as hit the longer-term targets of the virtues. In my chapter on moral luck in Virtue Ethics and Confucianism, I argue that Aristotle and Confucius give a much more plausible account of moral luck than some presume, and that their accounts of moral luck offer a good contemporary alternative that is a golden mean between some Kantian and Utilitarian accounts of moral luck. Also, I have an R&R for a paper reflecting on the relationship between philosophical contemplation and commitment to community wellbeing in Aristotle and Confucius, as well as an R&R on how the shared activity of friendship can continue after biological death in Aristotle. I also published an article, with Kristin Shrader-Frechette, on environmental racism and environmental restoration.
In my Comparative Philosophy publication, I argue that Aristotle and Mencius’ partialistic accounts of ethics can address the current debate about the demandingness of ethics and the contemporary moral issue of global poverty. In that article, I evaluate counterfactual ethical questions like “What would the scope of ethical concern be if these ancient authors were here today.” This is a little like asking Quine’s well-known counterfactual question “What would Caesar do if he were here today in charge of the Korean War? Would Caesar use (a) nuclear weapons or (b) catapults?” One way of interpreting this counterfactual question is to ask which feature of Caesar takes priority—e.g., the feature that Caesar actually preferred to use catapults, or the feature that Caesar tries to use the most powerful weapons available. I argue that both Aristotle and Mencius’ scope of concern is something like a polis, and the scope of moral demands depends on which features of a polis take priority. I argue that for both Aristotle and Mencius, if one feature takes priority, then the local community is the main scope of concern, and if another feature takes priority, then the whole world (including the global poor) would be the scope of concern.