the wELL-rOUNDED liFE
unDER CONTRACT WITH pRINCETON unIVERSITY prESS
For many people, living well means being well-rounded: having many different pursuits, in many different areas of life, without expecting those pursuits to coalesce into one single life project. In The Well-Rounded Life, I show that we have not paid enough attention to the value of living this way. I explore what makes it good to be well-rounded, and I show that taking well-roundedness seriously has profound consequences for how we think about living well. Understanding the full value of well-rounded lives changes how we theorize about well-being, how we evaluate the value of success and failure, and what goods our theories of distributive justice should consider.
You can read my published work here:
“Why tEN peRCENT?” - invited and forthcoming in the Georgetown Journal of Law and Public Policy (email me for a preprint)
While effective altruists (EAs) spend a lot of time researching which ways to do good are the most effective, historically many have assumed, with relatively little argument, that the benchmark for membership in the movement is a commitment to donate 10% of your earnings. This points to an asymmetry between the two halves of effective altruism: EAs tend to have relatively restricted standards for effectiveness (where to give), but they have much looser standards for altruism (how much to give). I investigate explanations for this asymmetry. While some possible justifications may work (pending empirical support), others look flimsier. I conclude that this means EA likely is, or anyway ought to be, more demanding than some of its proponents currently claim.
“Which Limitations Block Requirements?” - forthcoming in Moral Philosophy and Politics (preprint)
One of David Estlund’s key claims in Utopophobia is that theories of justice should not bend to human motivational limitations. Yet he does not extend this view to our cognitive limitations. This creates a dilemma. Theories of justice may ignore cognitive as well as motivational limitations—but this makes them so unrealistic as to be unrecognizable as theories of justice. Theories may bend to both cognitive and motivational limitations—but Estlund wants to reject this view. The other alternative is to find some non-ad hoc way to distinguish cognitive from motivational limitations. I argue that this strategy won’t work. Just as a person’s cognitive limitations may block her motives no matter how much she perseveres, so too motivational limitations may be genuine inabilities. Even ideal theories of justice must bend to even ordinary motivational limitations when they truly cause us to be unable to comply with requirements.
“Do good lives make good stories?” - philosophical studies 2023 (email me for a preprint)
Narrativists about well-being claim that our lives go better for us if they make good stories—if they exhibit cohesion, thematic consistency, and narrative arc. Yet narrativism leads to mistaken assessments of well-being: prioritizing narrative makes it harder to balance and change pursuits, pushes us toward one-dimensionality, and can’t make sense of the diversity of good lives. Some ways of softening key narrativist claims mean that the view can’t tell us very much about how to live a good life that we can’t find in other theories of well-being; while there are smaller-scale ways we can incorporate narrativist insights into our views of well-being, narrativism should not be a universal organizing principle for our lives.
I wrote a post about this paper for the New Work in Philosophy newsletter, which you can read here.
“Is There a Duty to Read the News?” - Journal of Moral Philosophy 2022 (email me for a preprint)
It seems as though we have a duty to read the news—that we’re doing something wrong when we refuse to pay attention to what’s going on in the world. But why? I argue that some plausible justifications for a duty to read the news fail to fully explain this duty: this duty cannot be justified only by reference to its consequences, or as a duty of democratic citizenship, or as a self-regarding duty. It can, however, be justified on the grounds that we have a positive, imperfect duty of respect for strangers, even when our actions don’t affect them directly. Reading the news is a key way, sometimes the only way, we can respect those who are strangers to us. I close by considering some of the implications and limitations of this duty.
“Bright Lines in Juvenile Justice” - Journal of Political Philosophy 2021 (preprint)
In a recent series of decisions, the Supreme Court has categorically restricted the ways in which we may punish juveniles. This has created a bright line: all juveniles are treated as less culpable than adults, even if individual juveniles are fully culpable. The Court’s reasoning in these cases holds broader lessons for our theories of justice. A certain model of ideal justice is impossible: ideal laws cannot deliver precise justice. I use the example of juvenile justice to explore the limits of ideal theory and the pros and cons of bright-line rules.
“Incomplete Ideal Theory” - Social Theory and Practice 2019 (preprint)
Even ideal theories of justice must take into account a decidedly non-ideal fact about us: that we are inherently imperfect reasoners. This means that insofar as we expect to put ideal theories of justice to practical use, these must be incomplete—we cannot expect to agree on a complete theory that fully answers our questions about justice. I show how work in philosophy of law can help answer these political questions: judges frequently agree on a ruling without fully agreeing on the theory behind that ruling. Reflection on this model reveals how incomplete ideal theory can guide sustained social progress over time.
“Effective Altruism: How Big Should the Tent Be?” - Public Affairs Quarterly 2018 (preprint)
As effective altruism gains influence, the movement finds itself at a crossroads. Should it broaden its appeal by being more permissive about what kinds of giving count as effective? I argue that this permissiveness is inconsistent with effective altruism as it currently exists and, more importantly, with the philosophical commitments that set limits on what it can become.
“Ideal Theory and ‘Ought Implies Can’” - Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 2018 (preprint)
When we can’t live up to the ultimate standards of morality, how can moral theory give us guidance? We can distinguish between ideal and non-ideal theory to see that there are different versions of the voluntarist constraint, ‘ought implies can.’ Ideal moral theory identifies the best standard, so its demands are constrained by one version. Non-ideal theory tells us what to do given our psychological and motivational shortcomings and so is constrained by others. Moral theory can now both provide an ultimate standard and give us guidance; this view also gives us new insights into demandingness and blame.
“Abortion and Miscarriage” - Philosophical Studies 2017 (preprint)
The prevalence of miscarriage (particularly early miscarriage) poses a dilemma for those who believe fetuses are fully persons from the moment of conception. Either they must advocate for a radical change in our political and medical priorities, or they must revise their views on fetal personhood.
Book Reviews
Hilary Greaves and Theron Pummer, Effective Altruism: Philosophical Issues - Utilitas 2020 (preprint)
Kate Greasley, Arguments about Abortion: Personhood, Morality, and Law - Ethics 2018 (preprint)