All links are to philpapers; drafts of papers that are not open access are available there.
Papers
Reconceiving Murdochian Realism
Ergo 10 (2023) (published version)
It can be tempting to read Iris Murdoch as subscribing to the same position as standard contemporary moral realists. Her language is often similar to theirs and they share some key commitments, most importantly the rejection of the fact-value dichotomy. However, it is a mistake to assume that her realism amounts to the same thing theirs does. In this paper I offer a sketch of her alternative conception of realism, which centres on the idea that truth and reality are fundamentally ethical concepts. For Murdoch, I suggest, realism is a matter of doing justice to the objects one is confronted with—something that cannot be understood except in ethical terms.
Epistemic Partialism
Philosophy Compass (2023) (published version)
Most of us are partial to our friends and loved ones: we treat them with special care, and we feel justified in doing so. In recent years, the idea that good friends are also epistemically partial to one another has been popular. Being a good friend, so-called epistemic partialists suggest, involves being positively biased towards one's friends – that is, involves thinking more highly of them than is warranted by the evidence. In this paper, I outline the concept of epistemic partiality and its relation to non-epistemic partiality and explore some considerations that speak in favour of and against such partialism in friendships. I finish by suggesting some directions in which this debate could go next.
Murdoch's Ontological Argument
Co-authored with Matt Dougherty. European Journal of Philosophy 31 (3) (2023) (published version)
Anselm’s ontological argument is an argument for the existence of God. This paper presents Iris Murdoch’s ontological argument for the existence of the Good. It discusses her interpretation of Anselm’s argument, her own distinctive appropriation of it, as well as some of the merits of her version of the argument. In doing so, it also shows how the argument integrates some key Murdochian ideas: morality’s wide scope, the basicness of vision to morality, moral realism, and Platonism.
Is Forgiveness Openness to Reconciliation?
Co-authored with Matt Dougherty. Inquiry (forthcoming issue, published online)
In a recent paper, Strabbing (2020) argues that forgiveness is openness to reconciliation relative to a relationship level. In this paper, we argue that the openness-to-reconciliation account of forgiveness does not constitute an improvement on the forswearing-resentment account. We argue that it does not fit well with our ordinary practices of forgiving and cannot allow for plausible cases of forgiveness without reconciliation. We also argue that the features Strabbing identifies as distinct advantages of her account are features of the forswearing-resentment account as well.
What's Bad about Friendship with Bad People?
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 51 (7) (2021) (published version)
Is there something bad about being friends with seriously bad people? Intuitively, it seems so, but it is hard to see why this should be. This is especially the case since some other kinds of loving relationship with bad people look morally acceptable or even good. In this paper, I argue that friendship inherently involves taking one’s friends seriously, which involves openness to their beliefs, concerns, and subjective interests. Deeply immoral views and attitudes ought not to be taken seriously or considered as options, and I argue that this explains why being friends with bad people is itself morally problematic.
Iris Murdoch, Privacy and the Limits of Moral Testimony
European Journal of Philosophy 30 (3) (2022) (published version)
Recent discussions of moral testimony have focused on the acceptability of forming beliefs on the basis of moral testimony, but there has been little acknowledgement of the limits to testimony’s capacity to convey moral knowledge. In this paper I outline one such limit, drawing on Iris Murdoch’s (1956, 1970) conception of private moral concepts. Such concepts, I suggest, plausibly play an important role in moral thought, and yet moral knowledge expressed in them cannot be testimonially acquired.
The Epistemic Demands of Friendship: Friendship as Inherently Knowledge-Involving
Synthese 199 (2021) (published version)
Many recent philosophers have been tempted by epistemic partialism. They hold that epistemic norms and those of friendship constitutively conflict. In this paper, I suggest that underpinning this claim is the assumption that friendship is not an epistemically rich state, an assumption that even opponents of epistemic partiality have not questioned. I argue that there is good reason to question this assumption, and instead regard friendship as essentially involving knowledge of the other. If we accept this account of friendship, the possibility of epistemic partialism does not arise.
Hoping and Intending
Journal of the American Philosophical Association 7 (4) (2021) (published version)
Hope powerfully influences our lives, deeply shaping our actions as well as being essential for social and political change. Many accounts of hope, however, fail to do justice to its active role, ignoring the connection between hope and action which makes it a significant feature of our lives. In this paper I propose a new account of hope in which hopes characteristically shape and figure in intentions. I argue that this account does justice to hope’s distinctive manifestations in action, explains the rational constraints on hoping, and sheds light on the distinctions between hoping and wishing.
The Virtue of Hope in a Turbulent World
In Values and Virtues in a Changing World, ed. Anneli Jefferson, Orestis Palermos, Panos Paris and Jonathan Webber (2022)
In this paper I argue that hope is a virtue. I argue that hope is necessary for engaging in a broad kind of project which is essential in order to live a meaningful human life (‘vulnerable projects’), and that this gives us reason to think that it is non-instrumentally valuable in our lives. Specifically, I will suggest that it is well understood as a structural virtue, a virtue of self-governance. Such a virtue will be particularly significant in turbulent times, since in those periods we may not be in a position to have outright (positive) expectations about the future.
Mourning and the Recognition of Value
Co-authored with Matt Dougherty. In Meanings of Mourning, edited by Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode (2023)
Ancient Greek thinking in regard to mourning can seem austere and dispassionate, condemning long periods of mourning as uncourageous. Modern reflections on the topic, however, seem to lead to a different problem. We moderns usually take mourning to be a proof of the value that others have for us and, to that extent, to encourage it; but if mourning is a proof of value, how could it be appropriate to move on when one has truly loved and valued someone? Assuming that it is appropriate to value others extremely highly – perhaps even infinitely – how could it ever make sense for one’s grief to abate? Do loss and proper mourning thus present us with a choice between living well and loving well?
In this paper, we aim to vindicate the pressing nature of these questions but nonetheless argue that we do not need to choose between living well and loving well. We first explain how these questions become pressing and why loving well seems to necessitate unending mourning in the case of some losses. We then turn to some empirical research about how people in fact mourn the loss of partners and close family members – research that can seem to imply that we do not tend to love well at all. And, finally, we offer an explanation of why ceasing to mourn need not be a failure of love. In particular, we offer an account of how ceasing to mourn can be a fitting response to the object of love, as well as compatible with living well.
Iris Murdoch and the Epistemic Significance of Love
In New Philosophical Essays on Love and Loving, edited by Simon Cushing (2021)
Iris Murdoch makes some ambitious claims about love’s epistemic significance which can initially seem puzzling in the light of its heterogeneous and messy everyday manifestations. In this paper I provide an interpretation of Murdochian love such that Murdoch’s claims about its epistemic significance can be understood. I argue that Murdoch conceives of love as a virtue, and as belonging at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of the virtues, and that this makes sense of the epistemic role Murdochian love fulfils. Moreover, I suggest that there is good reason to think that Murdochian love is not as far from everyday conceptions of love as it can initially appear.
On the Basis of Friendship - a Reply to Phelan
Inquiry 66 (6) (2023) (published version)
What is common to all instances of friendship? Given their seemingly heterogeneous character, Phelan (2019) suggests that friendships are relationships that result from collaborative norm-manipulation. In this paper, I suggest that this proposal fails to account for all friendships without relying on the notion of some kind of care.
Humility and Ethical Development
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 17 (2020) (published version)
Humility can seem like a somewhat ‘unfashionable’ virtue: the word can conjure an image of cringing servility, unduly romanticised feelings of inferiority, or a level of self-denial which seems ill-placed in a life well-lived. But the term can also capture something of great ethical importance. In this paper, I propose an account of humility that attempts to capture this moral significance. I then explore the connection between humility and ethical development, arguing that humility has an important role in ethical improvement. If such a connection is vindicated, it suggests that humility is valuable twice over: it has intrinsic worth but is also instrumentally valuable, enabling us to become better people.
Responsibility and Comparative Pride - a Critical Discussion of Morgan-Knapp
The Philosophical Quarterly 70 (2020) (published version)
Taking pride in being better than others in some regard is not uncommon. In a recent paper, Christopher Morgan-Knapp (2019) argues that such pride is misguided: it ‘presents things as being some way they are not’ (Morgan-Knapp 2019: 317). I argue that Morgan-Knapp's arguments do not succeed in showing that comparative pride is theoretically mistaken.
Book Reviews
Review of Panizza, The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil
Philosophy 98 (3) (2023) (forthcoming issue, published online)
Review of Lipscomb, The Women Are Up to Something
Philosophy 97 (4) (2022) (published version)
Review of Wright (ed.) Humility
Journal of Moral Philosophy 18 (2021) (published version)
Forthcoming Work and Work in Progress (email me for drafts)
Murdoch and Gilead: John Ames as a Model of Murdochian Virtue (forthcoming in an edited collection on Narrative and Ethical Understanding, ed. Garry Hagberg)
Purpose and Play in Art and Ethics (forthcoming in Iris Murdoch's Sovereignty of Good After 50 Years, eds. Carla Bagnoli and Brad Cokelet)
Epistemic Partialism and Taking Our Friends Seriously (forthcoming, American Philosophical Quarterly)
A monograph on Iris Murdoch's meta ethics (in progress)
Papers
Reconceiving Murdochian Realism
Ergo 10 (2023) (published version)
It can be tempting to read Iris Murdoch as subscribing to the same position as standard contemporary moral realists. Her language is often similar to theirs and they share some key commitments, most importantly the rejection of the fact-value dichotomy. However, it is a mistake to assume that her realism amounts to the same thing theirs does. In this paper I offer a sketch of her alternative conception of realism, which centres on the idea that truth and reality are fundamentally ethical concepts. For Murdoch, I suggest, realism is a matter of doing justice to the objects one is confronted with—something that cannot be understood except in ethical terms.
Epistemic Partialism
Philosophy Compass (2023) (published version)
Most of us are partial to our friends and loved ones: we treat them with special care, and we feel justified in doing so. In recent years, the idea that good friends are also epistemically partial to one another has been popular. Being a good friend, so-called epistemic partialists suggest, involves being positively biased towards one's friends – that is, involves thinking more highly of them than is warranted by the evidence. In this paper, I outline the concept of epistemic partiality and its relation to non-epistemic partiality and explore some considerations that speak in favour of and against such partialism in friendships. I finish by suggesting some directions in which this debate could go next.
Murdoch's Ontological Argument
Co-authored with Matt Dougherty. European Journal of Philosophy 31 (3) (2023) (published version)
Anselm’s ontological argument is an argument for the existence of God. This paper presents Iris Murdoch’s ontological argument for the existence of the Good. It discusses her interpretation of Anselm’s argument, her own distinctive appropriation of it, as well as some of the merits of her version of the argument. In doing so, it also shows how the argument integrates some key Murdochian ideas: morality’s wide scope, the basicness of vision to morality, moral realism, and Platonism.
Is Forgiveness Openness to Reconciliation?
Co-authored with Matt Dougherty. Inquiry (forthcoming issue, published online)
In a recent paper, Strabbing (2020) argues that forgiveness is openness to reconciliation relative to a relationship level. In this paper, we argue that the openness-to-reconciliation account of forgiveness does not constitute an improvement on the forswearing-resentment account. We argue that it does not fit well with our ordinary practices of forgiving and cannot allow for plausible cases of forgiveness without reconciliation. We also argue that the features Strabbing identifies as distinct advantages of her account are features of the forswearing-resentment account as well.
What's Bad about Friendship with Bad People?
Canadian Journal of Philosophy 51 (7) (2021) (published version)
Is there something bad about being friends with seriously bad people? Intuitively, it seems so, but it is hard to see why this should be. This is especially the case since some other kinds of loving relationship with bad people look morally acceptable or even good. In this paper, I argue that friendship inherently involves taking one’s friends seriously, which involves openness to their beliefs, concerns, and subjective interests. Deeply immoral views and attitudes ought not to be taken seriously or considered as options, and I argue that this explains why being friends with bad people is itself morally problematic.
Iris Murdoch, Privacy and the Limits of Moral Testimony
European Journal of Philosophy 30 (3) (2022) (published version)
Recent discussions of moral testimony have focused on the acceptability of forming beliefs on the basis of moral testimony, but there has been little acknowledgement of the limits to testimony’s capacity to convey moral knowledge. In this paper I outline one such limit, drawing on Iris Murdoch’s (1956, 1970) conception of private moral concepts. Such concepts, I suggest, plausibly play an important role in moral thought, and yet moral knowledge expressed in them cannot be testimonially acquired.
The Epistemic Demands of Friendship: Friendship as Inherently Knowledge-Involving
Synthese 199 (2021) (published version)
Many recent philosophers have been tempted by epistemic partialism. They hold that epistemic norms and those of friendship constitutively conflict. In this paper, I suggest that underpinning this claim is the assumption that friendship is not an epistemically rich state, an assumption that even opponents of epistemic partiality have not questioned. I argue that there is good reason to question this assumption, and instead regard friendship as essentially involving knowledge of the other. If we accept this account of friendship, the possibility of epistemic partialism does not arise.
Hoping and Intending
Journal of the American Philosophical Association 7 (4) (2021) (published version)
Hope powerfully influences our lives, deeply shaping our actions as well as being essential for social and political change. Many accounts of hope, however, fail to do justice to its active role, ignoring the connection between hope and action which makes it a significant feature of our lives. In this paper I propose a new account of hope in which hopes characteristically shape and figure in intentions. I argue that this account does justice to hope’s distinctive manifestations in action, explains the rational constraints on hoping, and sheds light on the distinctions between hoping and wishing.
The Virtue of Hope in a Turbulent World
In Values and Virtues in a Changing World, ed. Anneli Jefferson, Orestis Palermos, Panos Paris and Jonathan Webber (2022)
In this paper I argue that hope is a virtue. I argue that hope is necessary for engaging in a broad kind of project which is essential in order to live a meaningful human life (‘vulnerable projects’), and that this gives us reason to think that it is non-instrumentally valuable in our lives. Specifically, I will suggest that it is well understood as a structural virtue, a virtue of self-governance. Such a virtue will be particularly significant in turbulent times, since in those periods we may not be in a position to have outright (positive) expectations about the future.
Mourning and the Recognition of Value
Co-authored with Matt Dougherty. In Meanings of Mourning, edited by Mikolaj Slawkowski-Rode (2023)
Ancient Greek thinking in regard to mourning can seem austere and dispassionate, condemning long periods of mourning as uncourageous. Modern reflections on the topic, however, seem to lead to a different problem. We moderns usually take mourning to be a proof of the value that others have for us and, to that extent, to encourage it; but if mourning is a proof of value, how could it be appropriate to move on when one has truly loved and valued someone? Assuming that it is appropriate to value others extremely highly – perhaps even infinitely – how could it ever make sense for one’s grief to abate? Do loss and proper mourning thus present us with a choice between living well and loving well?
In this paper, we aim to vindicate the pressing nature of these questions but nonetheless argue that we do not need to choose between living well and loving well. We first explain how these questions become pressing and why loving well seems to necessitate unending mourning in the case of some losses. We then turn to some empirical research about how people in fact mourn the loss of partners and close family members – research that can seem to imply that we do not tend to love well at all. And, finally, we offer an explanation of why ceasing to mourn need not be a failure of love. In particular, we offer an account of how ceasing to mourn can be a fitting response to the object of love, as well as compatible with living well.
Iris Murdoch and the Epistemic Significance of Love
In New Philosophical Essays on Love and Loving, edited by Simon Cushing (2021)
Iris Murdoch makes some ambitious claims about love’s epistemic significance which can initially seem puzzling in the light of its heterogeneous and messy everyday manifestations. In this paper I provide an interpretation of Murdochian love such that Murdoch’s claims about its epistemic significance can be understood. I argue that Murdoch conceives of love as a virtue, and as belonging at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of the virtues, and that this makes sense of the epistemic role Murdochian love fulfils. Moreover, I suggest that there is good reason to think that Murdochian love is not as far from everyday conceptions of love as it can initially appear.
On the Basis of Friendship - a Reply to Phelan
Inquiry 66 (6) (2023) (published version)
What is common to all instances of friendship? Given their seemingly heterogeneous character, Phelan (2019) suggests that friendships are relationships that result from collaborative norm-manipulation. In this paper, I suggest that this proposal fails to account for all friendships without relying on the notion of some kind of care.
Humility and Ethical Development
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 17 (2020) (published version)
Humility can seem like a somewhat ‘unfashionable’ virtue: the word can conjure an image of cringing servility, unduly romanticised feelings of inferiority, or a level of self-denial which seems ill-placed in a life well-lived. But the term can also capture something of great ethical importance. In this paper, I propose an account of humility that attempts to capture this moral significance. I then explore the connection between humility and ethical development, arguing that humility has an important role in ethical improvement. If such a connection is vindicated, it suggests that humility is valuable twice over: it has intrinsic worth but is also instrumentally valuable, enabling us to become better people.
Responsibility and Comparative Pride - a Critical Discussion of Morgan-Knapp
The Philosophical Quarterly 70 (2020) (published version)
Taking pride in being better than others in some regard is not uncommon. In a recent paper, Christopher Morgan-Knapp (2019) argues that such pride is misguided: it ‘presents things as being some way they are not’ (Morgan-Knapp 2019: 317). I argue that Morgan-Knapp's arguments do not succeed in showing that comparative pride is theoretically mistaken.
Book Reviews
Review of Panizza, The Ethics of Attention: Engaging the Real with Iris Murdoch and Simone Weil
Philosophy 98 (3) (2023) (forthcoming issue, published online)
Review of Lipscomb, The Women Are Up to Something
Philosophy 97 (4) (2022) (published version)
Review of Wright (ed.) Humility
Journal of Moral Philosophy 18 (2021) (published version)
Forthcoming Work and Work in Progress (email me for drafts)
Murdoch and Gilead: John Ames as a Model of Murdochian Virtue (forthcoming in an edited collection on Narrative and Ethical Understanding, ed. Garry Hagberg)
Purpose and Play in Art and Ethics (forthcoming in Iris Murdoch's Sovereignty of Good After 50 Years, eds. Carla Bagnoli and Brad Cokelet)
Epistemic Partialism and Taking Our Friends Seriously (forthcoming, American Philosophical Quarterly)
A monograph on Iris Murdoch's meta ethics (in progress)
