Research

According to a prominent family of theories of blameworthiness, quality-of-will theories, a person is blameworthy for something just in case and because it manifests her ill will. My primary research systematically addresses possible challenges to, and along the way develops the most defendable version of, such a theory. The first, third, and fourth projects below are likely its most direct products. I’ve also listed several other projects below, not because they are soon to come to fruition but because they are things I'd be particularly delighted to chat about with anyone interested. Contact me if you are.

“Blame and Acquiescence: How a Quality of Will Theorist Can Handle Exemption, Luck, and Diminution” (Philosophical Studies, 2025) [Penultimate Manuscript][Published Version]

defends a novel account of the nature of blame by appeal to its unique capacity to explain away several intuitions that have long troubled quality-of-will theories.

“The Inconsistency of a Normative Pluriverse” (The Philosophical Quarterly, forthcoming) [Penultimate Manuscript][Online First]

counters a recent influential challenge to normative realism raised separately by Justin Clarke-Doane and Matti Eklund.

A paper on a challenge for quality-of-will theories (full draft available upon request)

excavates an underappreciated paradoxical feature that every quality-of-will theory exhibits.

A paper on a theory of blameworthiness (detailed handout available upon request)

defends a novel theory of blameworthiness—a version of quality-of-will theory—according to which an action is blameworthy just in case and because it involves what I call false appraisal.

A paper on forgiveness

debunks the widespread assumption that forgiveness entails not blaming, resolving a puzzle about forgiveness generated by the very assumption.

A paper on manipulation arguments

counters manipulation arguments against compatibilism.

A paper on the relationship between wrongness and blameworthiness

argues that going conceptions of moral ought or wrongness—whether objective, subjective, or prospective—are defective as they fail to preserve the intimate connection between wrongness and blameworthiness.

A paper on the relationship between wrongness and motivating reasons

argues that rightness or wrongness of an action can never depend on the reasons for which the agent acts.

A paper on expressive actions

argues, against Rosalind Hursthouse’s influential claim to the contrary, that actions expressing emotions are actions done for reasons.

A paper on moral ignorance

argues that moral ignorance never excuses, on the grounds that pure moral beliefs cannot but be alien to the psychological reality (‘will’) whose quality determines blameworthiness.

A paper on collective responsibility

confirms that contemporary German and Japanese citizens (say) are blameless for the war in the last century, while arguing that citizens of the victim countries are to some extent justified in adopting certain attitudes towards Germany and Japan that blamers often take.

A paper on hypocritical blame

argues that hypocritical blame is fine, insofar as it is genuine blame, while also arguing that what we take to be instances of hypocritical blame are often not instances of blame.

A paper on self-blame

argues that self-blame is a uniquely higher-order reaction than other-blame, in that it reacts not to one’s own conduct but to the correctness of other-blame for that conduct.

A paper on the fairness of blame

addresses the charge against compatibilism that it fails to do justice to the requirement that blame should be fair, on the grounds that blame is an essentially self-regarding attitude regarding which no question of fairness arises.