Research
My dissertation gives a systematic treatment of problems pertaining to the metaphysics and practical significance of identity, including Black's two-sphere world, the statue and the clay, the problem of the many, and personal identity over time.
Publications:
The Identity of Necessary Indiscernibles
(Forthcoming, Philosophers' Imprint)
Abstract: I propose a novel metaphysical explanation of identity and distinctness facts called the Modal Proposal. According to the Modal Proposal, for each identity fact – that is, each fact of the form a=b – that fact is metaphysically explained by the fact that it is necessary that the entities involved are indiscernible; and for each distinctness fact – each fact of the form a≠b – that fact is metaphysically explained by the fact that it is possible for the entities involved to be discernible. I argue that the Modal Proposal has greater payoffs at less cost than any of its competitors. It gives simple, uniform, and intuitive explanations of identity and distinctness that conserve longstanding philosophical insights about identity that go back to Leibniz. It does this while making our fundamental base more parsimonious, determining whether controversial cases of identity or distinctness are possible, and expanding our understanding of these central philosophical relations.
Works in Progress:
Why Permissive Ontologies Are Not Revisionary
Abstract: Permissive ontological theories, such as Mereological Universalism and Ontological Plenitude, entail that there is an abundance of entities beyond what we normally comprehend. For example, Ontological Plenitude states that for each object, there are numerous distinct objects coincident with it that differ in their modal properties. The ontological abundance posited by these theories or principles seems to falsify our ordinary counting judgments.
In this paper, I defend a general solution to counting problems. I argue that when we count, we do not do so by counting every distinct object in a domain, but rather that we count the number of discriminable objects in a domain, where some object x is discriminable from object y iff we it is (instrumentally) permissible to employ knowledge that x and y are distinct. In ordinary contexts, it is not appropriate to employ one’s knowledge of the existence of the unfamiliar entities posited by metaphysical theories or principles. For this reason, these objects are not discriminable and we do not count them in ordinary contexts. In ordinary contexts, the objects we count are just those that we ordinarily acknowledge. So, on my view of counting, our ordinary counting judgments come out true, even if we accept a theory or principle that entails an abundant ontology.
What Matters When Surviving Personal Transformations
Abstract: Survival is acknowledged to be significant in a distinctive and first-personal way. But not all instances of survival have this significance. Ordinary survival does, but this case does not:
Crash: Suppose you learn that, later today, you will be in a severe car crash. It may first come as a relief to learn that you will (at least biologically) survive. But suppose you learn that you will be in a permanent vegetative state. The crash will destroy the parts of your brain responsible for experience and action.
It seems that there is no first-personal difference between dying in the crash and being in a permanent vegetative state. Whatever is distinctively and first-personally significant about survival isn’t present.
Too little attention has been given to precisely stating what is distinctively and first-personally significant about survival. Even less attention has been given to whether undergoing certain personal transformations, experiences that change your core beliefs and values, has this significance. Consider:
Misanthrope: You are a humanitarian aid worker demolishing rock to make way for railroad tracks. You use a tampering rod to fill a blast hole with sand when the blasting powder inside explodes and sends the rod through your skull. It passes through and destroys much of your left frontal lobe. Miraculously, you survive. After your recovery, your personality is radically different from what it was before. Before your injury, your life revolved around helping others. However, after the injury, you became cruel. You quit your job because you no longer value its mission. You become a misanthrope with no care for humanity.
There seems to be a first-personal difference between surviving in Misanthrope and ordinary survival. I argue cases like Misanthrope give us reason to countenance two dimensions to the practical significance of survival: one associated with our being agents and another associated with our being subjects of experiences. In doing so, I give a precise characterization of these dimensions of distinctive first-personal significance to survival.
Covert Counterspeech
Abstract: We ought to speak up when we can. However, speaking up can sometimes be dangerous and counterproductive. Sometimes speaking up risks being met with violence. And even when there are no physical risks, speaking up can risk social, economic, or political harms. Moreover, speaking up is sometimes counterproductive. It may bring more attention to the speech one aims to counter, or incite backlash that ultimately helps the cause one is opposing. Effectively speaking up requires one to navigate these risks.
In this paper, I will argue that we can avoid many of these issues using a kind of speaking up that I call covert counter-speech which works by activating latent positive attitudes in one’s audience without their awareness. I will argue that covert counter-speech is particularly effective against certain kinds of harmful speech, namely, covert dogwhistles. To make this argument, I will present two problems that Langton’s (2018) overt counter-speech faces when used against covert dogwhistles that covert counter-speech avoids.