I argue for a nontraditional sufficiency thesis: virtuous activity is sufficient for happiness and some minimally favorable circumstances are necessary for virtuous activity. This view satisfies two intuitions from the ancient dispute that might at first seem in tension. Happiness depends on favorable external circumstances, ...

Is conscious reflection necessary for good moral judgment and decision-making? Philosophical attention to this question has increased in the last decade due to recent empirical work in moral psychology. I conclude that conscious reflection is not necessary for good moral judgment and decision-making, arguing that good moral ...

It is the goal of my dissertation to explain our peculiar aesthetic fascination with architectural ruins and to show why ruins are worthy of our time and aesthetic appreciation. I propose a model of aesthetic appreciation specific to ruins, one that not only presents a methodology of interpreting and evaluating ruins, but ...

I argue that current projects in 'naturalized metaphysics' fail to be properly naturalistic, and thereby fail in their stated aim to take one's metaphysics from science. I argue that naturalism must involve the idea of taking science seriously, and that this can only be spelled out in terms of taking not only the theories of ...

My dissertation provides a partial response to the question of what is owed by states to undocumented migrants in their territory. According to one prominent philosophical position, long-term undocumented migrants should be allowed to remain because they have become de facto social members of the society in question. I contend ...

States tend to be the centerpiece of International Relations theory, as they are commonly considered the primary actors of international relations. As such, states are commonly analyzed as intentional beings that act on their own reasons, based on their own beliefs and desires. This treatment of states as intentional entities ...

I argue for an account of blame as a reactive attitude, claiming that respectful blaming attitudes are affective, evaluative attitudes of disapproval directed at the wrongdoer, and are primarily about the wrongness of the attitudes or actions at issue. Understanding blame as, primarily, a form of moral address, entails that ...

There is no longer a dearth of well-reasoned argumentation for taking animals seriously and thus for questioning our exploitative relationships with them. It is over-determined that animals warrant moral attention. However, playing close attention to animals quickly reveals that taking their interests into account often ...

Jealousy is an emotion that arises in diverse circumstances and is experienced in phenomenologically diverse ways. In part because of this diversity, evaluations of jealous subjects tend to be conflicting and ambiguous. Thus philosophers who are interested in the moral status of jealousy face a challenge: to explain how, ...

An intertheory comparison should be assessed with regards to what goals it seeks to accomplish. Traditionally reductions have sought to establish ontological primacy, and also to have the reducing theory explain features of the reduced. From a functionalist perspective, this dissertation assesses three major results: a reduction ...