Research

Publications and forthcoming: 

The Moral Harms of Domestic Violence, First published October 26, 2021 in the Journal of Social Philosophy

In this article, I argue that victims of domestic violence characteristically suffer from two distinct kinds of moral harm: moral damage and moral injury. Moral damage occurs when the ability to develop or sustain good moral character has been compromised by an agent’s circumstances. Moral injury refers to a kind of psychological anguish that follows from when an agent causes or becomes causally implicated in actions that we ordinarily would understand to be morally grievous offenses. A victim who suffers from moral damage may not suffer from any psychological anguish; instead, a victim may consistently, although regrettably, devalue herself. A victim who suffers from moral injury may not suffer from a deficient moral character; she may be an exceptionally virtuous person who is faced with only morally regrettable options. Because abusers often expect victims to adopt morally deficient dispositions and often implicate victims in wrongdoing, I argue that victims of domestic violence characteristically suffer from both moral damage and moral injury. By appreciating the differences in the moral experiences of the victim, we become better positioned to identify strategies for responding to or repairing the different harms they suffer.

Domestic Violence and Abuse: Expanding Our Conceptual Repertoire (forthcoming in the Journal of Applied Philosophy) 

This paper aims to clarify and expand our conceptual repertoire for understanding domestic violence and abuse by making legible different characteristic harms, particularly those that cannot be made sense of in terms of physical harm. The first two sections of this paper review popular understandings of the harms of domestic violence and abuse. These often emphasize either (1) pain and suffering or (2) the loss of capacities for self-governance as characteristic harms of domestic violence and abuse. In its second half, this paper argues that domestic violence and abuse characteristically involve yet another harm to the victim, one that cannot neatly be explained in terms of hedonistic welfare or concerns for a victim’s capacities for self-governance. More specifically, this paper argues that through the characteristic social isolation of domestic violence and abuse, perpetrators alienate victims from what motivationally roots them to the world. Although relationships that motivationally root us to the world might make us fundamentally dependent on others and can cause us great pain, they nevertheless play a profoundly valuable role in our lives by giving us reasons to go on living.

Taylor Swift on the Value and Vulnerability of Love (forthcoming in Taylor Swift and Philosophy) 

As illustrated in Swift’s work, love can be understood as valuable for at least three reasons. First, love is morally valuable. Love takes us outside of our self-interest through our attention and investment in the value of another. Second, love helps us escape the problem of alienation and brings us connection, communion, and intimacy. Third and finally, we find in our loving relationships partners in making sense of ourselves and the world. Reflecting on the values realizable through love, we can better understand why it can be so difficult to leave a loving relationship, even when that loving relationship is ultimately at odds with our own well-being. The souring of a relationship does not always or even often void our valuing of the other or their role in our lives. The lover is still the person we see as valuable for all that they are and as the particular person with whom we can make sense of ourselves and the world. This dilemma is what we find in Swift's "hoax." “hoax” tells a story of someone who has embraced what makes love valuable and, as a consequence, faces the harms we are made vulnerable to in loving. However, the harms do not erase what made, or still makes, that love so valuable in our lives or the value we find in the flawed people we love. 

In progress: