Microaggression and Ambiguous Expereince

In Analysis

Emulative Envy and Loving Admiration

Here in The European Journal of Philosophy

Would you rather your friends, family, and partners envy you, or admire you, when you flourish? Many people would prefer to be admired, and so we often strive to tame our envy. Recently, however, Sara Protasi offered an intriguing defence of ‘emulative envy’ which apparently improves us and our relationships, and is compatible with love. I find her account unconvincing, and defend loving admiration in this article. In section two, I summarise Protasi’s nuanced account of envy. In section three, I argue that irrespective of how we analyse emotions in general we can argue that it is preferable to prioritise the cultivation of some emotions over others. In section four, I challenge Protasi’s assumptions about the affinity between love and envy. My core argument is in section five where I examine envy’s impact on the envier, the envied, and relationships. Envy impedes an authentic relationship to the goods and goals in the envier’s life, alienates the envied, and stifles joint-action. From all perspectives admiration typically fares better. After briefly considering the objection admiration may impede love in section six, I conclude, in section seven, that admiration should be preferred to emulative envy in our intimate relationships.

Revisiting the comparison between healthcare strikes and just war

Here in The Journal of Medical Ethics.

In the UK, healthcare workers are again considering whether to strike, and the moral status of strike action is being publicly debated. Mpho Selemogo argued that we can think productively about the ethical status of healthcare strikes by using the ethical framework often applied to armed conflict (2014). On this view, strikes need to be just, proportionate, likely to succeed, a last resort, pursued by a legitimate organisation and publicly communicated. In this article, I argue for a different approach to the just war comparison. Selemogo adopts a traditional, collectivist conception of just war reasoning but this is not the only view. So-called ‘individualist’ approaches to the morality of war can also be applied to strike action. Taking an individualist perspective complicates the traditional picture of a dispute arising between three well-defined groups of healthcare workers, employers and the innocent subjects of collateral damage: patients and the public. We arrive instead at a more complicated moral picture: some people might be more morally liable to be harmed than others during a strike, or can justly bear increased risks, and some are more obliged to strike than others. I describe this shift of framework before critically examining some of the traditional jus ad bellum conditions as applied to strikes.

Virtuous Chameleons: Social Roles, Integrity, and the Value of Compartmentalization

Here in The Ethics of Social Roles, Oxford University Press (2023) eds. Barber, A., Cordell, S.

Most people occupy several social roles. How are these roles to be managed? This chapter examines one strategy: the compartmentalization of roles, in which actions and mindsets change with the role people occupy. People might worry, however, that compartmentalization in tension with integrity or one’s commitment to the good. Might an integrating approach to roles be better? This chapter argues that compartmentalization is a fine way to manage multiple social roles. Central to the argument is a response to those who think compartmentalization must inhibit practical reflection, or is in tension with having integrity, or is alienating. In actual fact, the task of compartmentalizing roles is itself a valuable practical activity. Maintaining clear boundaries between roles and their attendant mindsets enables us to be guided by fully specified virtues, and flexible boundary work can help us avoid inappropriate forms of immersion in roles at the expense of other people.

Letting Go of Blame

Here in Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2022) (written with Per-Erik Milam).

Most philosophers acknowledge ways of overcoming blame, even blame directed at a culpable offender, that are not forgiving. Sometimes continuing to blame a friend for their offensive comment just isn't worth it, so we let go instead. However, despite being a common and widely recognised experience, no one has offered a positive account of letting go. Instead, it tends to be characterised negatively and superficially, usually in order to delineate the boundaries of forgiveness. This paper gives a more complete and systematic account of this important practice. We argue that the basic distinction between forgiving and letting go of blame follows from distinctions that many philosophers already accept. We then develop a positive account in terms of the reasons one has to let go rather than forgive and show that letting go is as valuable a part of our shared moral lives as forgiveness.

Multiple Loves and Shaped Selves

A chapter in The Moral Psychology of Love (2022) edited by Arina Pismenny and Berit Brogaard.

In his “Multiple Loves and Shaped Selves,”… Luke Brunning concentrates on the virtues of polyamory. He explores the ways in which romantic partners can influence one another—a phenomenon he calls fashioning. This concept aims to capture the variety of ways in which partners can shape each other, for example, by developing their character or enhancing their self-perception, while avoiding a complete merger of their identities or selves. Brunning argues that within the context of polyamory, such fashioning can be particularly unique and beneficial because of the kinds of challenges polyamory presents.

Sexual Jealousy and Sexual Infidelity

A chapter in The Palgrave Handbook of Sexual Ethics (2022) edited by David Boonin.

In this chapter, Natasha McKeever and Luke Brunning consider (sexual) jealousy in romantic life. They argue that jealousy is best understood as an emotional response to the threatened loss of love or attention, to which one feels deserving, because of a rival. Furthermore, the general value of jealousy can be questioned, and jealousy’s instrumental value needs to be balanced against a range of potential harms. They assess two potential ways of managing jealousy (which are not mutually exclusive)—firstly by adopting a policy of monogamy and secondly by engaging in emotional work. Neither of these methods is easy, and neither will solve jealousy altogether, but Brunning and McKeever argue that the second strategy should be taken more seriously.

Polyamory: The Future of Love?

A chapter in Philosophy of Love in the Past, Present, and Future (Routledge, 2022) edited by André Grahle, Natasha McKeever, and Joe Saunders.

In this chapter, I argue that although polyamorous relationships may appear to represent the future of love, we should be more circumspect. Modern love often feels disorientating because of conflicting romantic norms and the erosion of common rituals. Our attempts to cope which this context hinder our practical ability to securely explore alternative forms of romantic life. Polyamory is more a product of a disharmonious romantic landscape as an alternative to it. Instead, flourishing romantic life requires a substantial change of romantic character rather than the adoption of any specific relationship structure.

Asexuality

Here (open access), in the Journal of Applied Philosophy (written with Natasha McKeever)

Asexuality is overlooked in the philosophical literature and in wider society. Such neglect produces incomplete or inaccurate accounts of romantic life and harms asexual people. We develop an account of asexuality to redress this neglect and enrich discussion of romantic life. Asexual experiences are diverse. Some asexual people have sex; some have romantic relationships in the absence of sex. We accept the common definition of asexuality as the absence of sexual attraction and explain how sexual attraction and sexual desire differ by giving an affordance‐like account of sexual attraction. Armed with that distinction, we show that asexuality is clearly different from celibacy or disorders of desire and that some existing philosophical theories of sexual desire struggle to accommodate asexual sexuality. We then build on asexual testimony about the diversity of non‐sexual attractions to answer two common objections levelled at asexual romance: that romantic relationships require sexual attraction or that sex in the absence of sexual attraction is insufficiently focused on someone as an individual. Finally, we describe some of the ways asexuality has been erased or denigrated in society, and the specific injustices and harms that result.

Compersion: An Alternative to Jealousy?

Here, in the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Vol 6. (2): 225-45

Compersion is an important concept for non-monogamous people. Often described as jealousy's opposite, compersion labels positive feelings toward the intimacy of a beloved with other people. Since many people think jealousy is ordinary, intransigent, and even appropriate, compersion can seem psychologically and ethically dubious. I make the case for compersion, arguing it focuses on the flourishing of others and is thus not akin to pride, vicarious enjoyment, or masochistic pleasure. People cultivate compersion by softening their propensity to be jealous and by attending to the flourishing of others, which requires them to tackle entitlement and temper vulnerability. I argue that jealousy is not a valuable emotional disposition; its instrumental benefits are minor, unstable, and have to be traded against the harms of aggression. Arguments that conclude that jealousy is a virtue rest on contentious premises and overlook the practical question as to whether jealousy and compersion could be cultivated together.

The Avoidance Approach to Plural Value

Here in Theoria, Vol 66 No 160 (2019)

Value monists and value pluralists disagree deeply. Pluralists want to explain why moral life feels frustrating; monists want clear action guidance. If pluralism is true, our actions may be unable to honour irredeemably clashing values. This possibility could prompt pessimism, but the ‘avoidance approach’ to pluralism holds that although values may conflict inherently, we can take pre-emptive action to avoid situations where they would conflict in practice, rather like a child pirouetting to avoid the cracks on a pavement. Sadly, this view is hostage to epistemic problems and unforeseen consequences and is liable to generate timidity. It rests on the intuition that honouring values in action is more important than doing so in other ways, but this is a premise we have reason to reconsider.

Oppression, Forgiveness, and Ceasing to Blame

Here in the Journal for Ethics and Social Philosophy (written with Per-Erik Milam), Vol 14 No 2 (2018), Issue 2

Wrongdoing is inescapable. We all do wrong and are wronged; and in response we often blame one another. But if blame is a defining feature of our social lives, so is ceasing to blame. We might excuse, justify, or forgive an offender; or simply let the offence go. We argue that whether and how we relinquish blame depends on many circumstances only partially within our control. Like any norm-governed practice, one can cease to blame appropriately or inappropriately, successfully or unsuccessfully. Success requires that the action be done for the right reasons and that it secure uptake. We argue that social and material circumstances can compromise one’s ability to successfully cease blaming in the manner one intends. One can fail to relinquish blame and circumstances can also prevent one from doing so. However, uncooperative social and material circumstances do not only arise by chance. Our central argument is that circumstances of oppression can systematically compromise one’s ability and opportunities to forgive. This deprivation is an insidious facet of oppression that has been neglected both by theories of oppression and forgiveness but which has significant implications for how we understand the power and purpose of forgiveness. 

How Complex is Your Love? The Case of Romantic Compromises and Polyamory 

Here in the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, (written with Aaron Ben-Ze'ev) 2018, 48: 98-116 

This article highlights a somewhat neglected aspect of love (and of emotions in general): their complexity. We suggest distinguishing between three major related types of emotional complexity: emotional diversity, emotional ambivalence, and emotional behavior. The notion of emotional complexity has far-reaching implications for understanding emotions and our wellbeing. This is illustrated by examining the notion of emotional complexity in two common yet complex phenomena in the romantic realm: romantic compromises and polyamory.

Cultivating an Integrated Self

Here in Ethics and Self Cultivation: Historical Perspectives, edited by Matthew Dennis and Sander Werkhoven for Routledge

This chapter considers two approaches to the idea that, in self-cultivating, people need to integrate the various aspects of their mental life. In section one, I distinguish between integration of mental states with each other, aimed at avoiding conflicts between such states (‘Structural integration’), and the integration of mental states to a person’s mind writ large, aimed at overcoming forms of alienation or impoverishment (‘Mental Integration’). Structural Integration purportedly underpins the ability to act well and avoid suffering. This view is mistaken, however, and the value of such integration is deeply contingent, as I illustrate through a discussion of Michael Smith on the organization of desire. Moreover, such integration is compatible with a deeply defensive form of mental life which most people would reject, as I argue in my discussion of projective identification: a mental defense mechanism observed by psychoanalysts. In building on this psychoanalytic focus, I argue that there is a viable category of Mental Integration ideals of the cultivated self, which aim to overcome the defensiveness that distances someone from aspects of their mental life. 

The Distinctiveness of Polyamory 

Here in The Journal of Applied Philosophy 2018, Vol. 35, No. 3: 513-31  

Polyamory is a form of consensual non-monogamy. To render it palatable to critics, activists and theorists often accentuate its similarity to monogamy. I argue that this strategy conceals the distinctive character of polyamorous intimacy. A more discriminating account of polyamory helps me answer objections to the lifestyle whilst noting some of its unique pitfalls. In section two, I define polyamory, and explain why people pursue this lifestyle. Many think polyamory is an inferior form of intimacy and, in section three, I describe four of their main objections. In section four, I explain how commitment to “the polyamorous possibility” prompts one to viscerally experience personal, practical, and social constraints. Unlike monogamous dynamics, these confrontations are mediated by third parties who destabilize the familiar dynamics of coupled life. Polyamory can be emotionally challenging but, as I outline in section five, it is sustained by interpersonal emotional work that helps people feel and understand their emotions, communicate without confrontation, and contain the difficult emotions of others. This work is qualitatively and quantitatively intensified in polyamory. In sections six and seven, I rebut objections to polyamory whilst also acknowledging the ways polyamory has its own pitfalls. 

Reconsidering the Soteriological Significance of Sunyavada 

Here, in The Journal of Contemporary Buddhism, 2014, Vol. 15 Issue 2. 

The doctrine of emptiness is of significant soteriological importance for Madhyamaka Buddhism. Therefore it is a reasonable prima facie demand that interpretations of emptiness must accord with this fact. This hermeneutic consideration has been taken to present particular problems for Mark Siderits’ semantic interpretation of the doctrine of emptiness. This paper examines Siderits’ attempted reconciliation of his semantic interpretation of the doctrine of emptiness with its purported soteriological aspects. I question whether Siderits can successfully respond to these problems in order to adequately incorporate the hermeneutic requirement. I argue that the semantic view is not immune to the problems that it was formulated to avoid. It too can be asserted. What is more, the semantic view can generate its own particular forms of attachment which can obscure soteriological goals. These conclusions lead me to question the general project of trying to develop a soteriologically efficacious interpretation of doctrine of emptiness in the first place.