Edited Volumes
(with Julia Annas) Virtue and Action: Selected Papers by Rosalind Hursthouse, Oxford University Press, 2023. This volume brings together a selection of Rosalind Hursthouse's essays on Aristotle, virtue ethics, and social philosophy. These articles provide valuable context and clarification for much of her more famous work while drawing attention to new avenues of philosophical investigation that Hursthouse pursued. Hursthouse's work played an integral role in establishing virtue ethics as a distinctive approach in ethical theory. This collection includes essays on the development of virtue in children, what the Aristotelian practically wise person knows, how virtue ethicists can inform discussions about environmental and animal ethics, what the starting point for virtue politics should be in a contemporary political context, and how human nature and ethical naturalism could provide the foundation for a virtue ethical system. |
Journal Articles & Book Chapters
"The Analysis of Constitutions in Plato's Statesman", Archai, (forthcoming).
This paper provides a framework for understanding how nonideal constitutions are better or worse imitations of the ideal constitution. My suggestion is that the nonideal constitutions imitate the skill of the political expert, which includes an epistemic component (their political knowledge) and two teleological components (the benefit to the citizens on the one hand, and the unity of the city on the other). I then show how some constitutions better imitate the political expert’s skill across these dimensions, as higher-ranked constitutions are in a better epistemic condition, better benefit the citizens, and better foster unity in the city than lower-ranked constitutions. A major upshot of my reading will be to show that Plato recognizes the value of some nonideal constitutions while making clear how they still fall short of the ideal.
"Plato on Democracy", in V. Arena & E. Robinson (eds.), The Cambridge History of Democracy, Cambridge University Press (forthcoming).
Plato is often hailed as the first philosophical critic of democracy and the ideal city of his Republic is easily seen as a paradigm of an anti-democratic constitution. While it is true that Plato objected to much about how democracy was practised in his own time, especially after his mentor Socrates was sentenced to death by the democratic vote of an Athenian jury, Plato’s political theorizing also reveals an interest in improving and rehabilitating democratic institutions. This chapter seeks to tease apart the threads of Plato's thinking about democracy by separating three issues: firstly, Plato's insistence on rule by knowledgeable people and his claim that most people are politically incompetent (§1); secondly, Plato's criticisms of oratory and the corrupting effects of public rhetoric (§2); thirdly, Plato's incorporation of democratic institutions in the second-best city of the Laws (§3). Once we appreciate the nuances of these different evaluations of democracy and related political practices in Plato's corpus, we can see that Plato was not simply ‘anti-democratic’ or ‘pro-democratic,’ but rather that he envisaged a number of creative ways to reform democracy in light of his own critiques while arguing that some central democratic institutions be abandoned or seriously altered.
(with Justin Tiwald) "Meritocracy and the Tests of Virtue in Greek and Confucian Political Thought", Journal of Confucian Philosophy and Culture, 2024, 41, 111–147.
A crucial tenet of virtue-based or expertise-based theorizing about politics is that there are ways to identify and select morally and epistemically excellent people to hold office. This paper considers historical challenges to this task that come from within Greek and Confucian thought and political practice. Because of how difficult it is to assess character in ordinary settings, we argue that it is even more difficult to design institutions that select for virtue at the much wider political scale. Specifically, we argue that the vast majority of proposals that purport to select for virtue are either (a) unlikely to be effective, (b) not implementable at the scale of most current nations, or (c) have already been incorporated into most democratic states. Thus defenders of meritocratic institutions should take more seriously the practical barriers that will almost certainly arise when trying to implement these proposals at scale. Historical proponents of meritocratic values were well aware of concerns about the feasibility of their political ideals, and we should be too.
“Stoic Forgiveness”, in R. Enright & G. Pettigrove (eds.), The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Psychology of Forgiveness, Routledge, 2023, 87–100.
What can Stoicism offer to contemporary debates about forgiveness? Given their outright rejection of a reactive attitudes framework for responding to wrongdoing and their bold suggestions of how to revise our moral practices, the Stoics provide a valuable lens through which to re-evaluate various central claims in the debates about forgiveness. In this chapter, I highlight four common assumptions that the Stoics would consider problematic: firstly, that forgiveness is opposed to justice; secondly, that anger and resentment are necessary for registering wrongdoing; thirdly, that anger and resentment are generally reliable at tracking the severity of wrongdoing; fourthly, that reconciliation with wrongdoers is an option rather than an imperative of virtue. Insofar as the Stoics provide defensible and often compelling alternatives to these positions, Stoicism offers a number of philosophical resources to re-conceptualize the way we think about forgiveness and suggests ways in which forgiveness might be better integrated into a virtue ethical framework for moral reflection.
"Changing the Laws of the Laws", Ancient Philosophy, 2021, 41/2, 413–441.
Did Plato intend the laws of the Laws to change? While most scholars agree that there is to be legal change in Magnesia, I contend that this issue has been clouded by confusing three distinct questions: (1) whether there are legal mechanisms for changing the law in Magnesia, (2) what the attitudes of Magnesian citizens towards innovation and legal change are, and (3) whether Plato thinks the law is always the ultimate political authority. Once we separate these issues and look at the relevant texts more closely, we see that the Athenian Visitor is primarily concerned with supplementing the original lawgiver’s laws and that any innovation that occurs should be consistent with this lawcode. This does not settle the question about whether it is always right to act in accordance with the existing laws, though it does provide a valuable framework for understanding a central aspect of Platonic political philosophy. Thus, although Plato’s ideal places knowledge above the law, in practice the laws of Magnesia will be fixed and authoritative for those people living under them.
"The Mixed Constitution in Plato's Laws", Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2021, 99/1, 1–18.
In Plato's Laws, the Athenian Visitor says that the best constitution is a mixture of monarchy and democracy. This is the theoretical basis for the institutions of Magnesia and helps the citizens become virtuous. But what is meant by monarchy and democracy, and how are they mixed? I argue that the fundamental relations in Plato's discussion of constitutions are those of authority (represented by monarchical institutions) and equality (represented by democratic institutions). These principles are centrally about the extent to which citizens submit to the judgment of an authority and the extent to which they decide for themselves respectively, i.e. the extent to which they are ruled by themselves or ruled by another. The institutions of Magnesia reflect these principles in practice, and provide a more nuanced way to understand Plato’s assessment of democratic institutions.
"The Offices of Magnesia", Polis, 2020, 37/3, 567–589.
In this article, I attempt to provide a complete and exhaustive list of all of the offices and major political roles proposed within the constitution of Magnesia, detailing the title of the office, number of offices, method of appointment, age or gender restrictions, length of term, and explicit responsibilities assigned to that office. This tabulation is intended to be useful for new readers of the Laws and to scholars of various methodological approaches interested in the political arrangements of Magnesia.
“Ritual Spaces: Putting Art in its Political Space (A Response to Dorothea von Hantelmann)” Naxos Musicology International, Jan 4, 2020, url: https://www.naxosmusicology.com/opinion/ritual-spaces-putting-art-in-its-political-space-a-response-to-dorothea-von-hantelmann/.
The Shed is a new, multi-million dollar dynamic art space in New York's Hudson Yards. In conjunction with its opening, The Shed published Dorothea von Hantelmann's essay What is the New Ritual Space for the 21st Century, which argues that the new art space for our time should combine the modalities of the theater and the modalities of the exhibition. According to von Hantelmann, while the theater allowed for rituals that manifest our collective social values and the exhibition allowed for rituals that engage the subjective artistic experience of the modern individual, we are on the verge of a new societal epoch that combines these values calls for new kinds of dynamic multimedia and art spaces to house such works. In this opinion piece, I seek to challenge such a narrative and its normative conclusions, especially in relation to the new art space to which it is applied.
"Virtue, Rule-Following, and Absolute Prohibitions", Journal of the American Philosophical Association, Vol. 5, Issue 1, Spring 2019, 78–97.
Elizabeth Anscombe’s seminal article “Modern Moral Philosophy” argued that we need a new ethics, one which uses virtue terms to generate absolute prohibitions against certain act-types. Leading contemporary virtue ethicists have not taken up Anscombe’s challenge in justifying absolute prohibitions and have generally downplayed the role of rule-following in their normative theories. This is primarily because contemporary virtue ethicists have focused on what is sufficient for characterizing the deliberation and action of the fully virtuous person, and rule-following is inadequate for this task. In this paper, I take up Anscombe’s challenge by showing that rule-following is necessary for virtuous agency, and that virtue ethics can justify absolute prohibitions. First, I offer a possibility proof by showing how virtue ethics can generate absolute prohibitions in three ways: by considering actions that directly manifest vice or that cannot be performed virtuously; actions that are prohibited by one’s institutional roles and practical identities; and actions that are prohibited by the prescriptions of the wise. I then seek to show why virtue ethics should incorporate rule-following and absolute prohibitions into their theories. I emphasize the central role that rules have in the development of virtue, then motivate the stronger view that fully virtuous agents follow moral rules by considering the importance of hope, uncertainty about consequences, and taking responsibility for what eventuates. Finally, I provide an account of what Anscombe called a “corrupt mind,” explaining how our understanding of virtue is corrupted if we think that virtue may require us to do vicious actions.
"Plato on Love and Sex" in A. Martin (ed.), The Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophy, Routledge, 2019, 105–115.
When people now talk about a relationship as being “Platonic”, they mean that the relationship is a non-sexual friendship. But what did Plato himself say about different kinds of relationship, and how did his name come to be associated with non-sexual relationships? While Plato’s Symposium has been the center of attention for his views on love, I argue that the Phaedrus and Laws VIII provide a much clearer account of Plato’s views. In these dialogues, Plato distinguishes between two kinds of love and three kinds of lover. The two kinds of love are fundamentally oriented towards different objects: one kind of love is focused on the body of the beloved and seeks to extract as much bodily pleasure from them as possible, whereas the other kind of love is focused on the soul and seeks to benefit the beloved by improving their character. There is a lover for each kind of love, and a third kind of lover who is torn between these two opposing objects of love. Notably, in the kind of love directed towards the soul, the lovers will not engage in sexual activity. I argue that this is because Plato thinks that the natural function of sex is the procreation of good children and that engaging in such an intensely pleasurable activity risks making the lovers intemperate and lacking in self-control. Thus Plato thinks that the best kind of relationship is one of love (and not just friendship) but is nonetheless non-sexual.
"Unfamiliar Voices: Harmonizing the Non-Socratic Speeches and Plato's Psychology" in P. Destrée & Z. Giannopoulou (eds.), Plato's Symposium: A Critical Guide, Cambridge University Press, 2017, 28–47.
Commentators have often been puzzled by the structure of the Symposium; in particular, it is unclear what the relationship is between Socrates’ speech and that of the other symposiasts. This chapter seeks to make a contribution to that debate by highlighting parallels between the first four speeches of the Symposium and the goals of the early education in the Republic. In both dialogues, I contend, we see Plato concerned with educating people through (a) activating and cultivating spirited motivations, (b) becoming lawful and taking virtue as a goal, (c) harmonizing the opposing forces in their soul, and (d) minimizing the appetites and making them orderly. While these are familiar points from the moral education of the Republic, I argue that they also map onto the first four speeches of the Symposium respectively. Because in the Republic this moral education is necessary to make progress on the epistemic ascent, we can speculate that there is a similar point to be made in the Symposium – without first training our character adequately, we will not be able to climb the ladder of love. While the positive effects of Eros described in the early speeches of the Symposium are only imitations of the ideal education regime of Kallipolis, they nevertheless improve one’s character in such a way that better prepares the soul for philosophy. Finally, I argue that the importance of this moral education is dramatized at the end of the Symposium through Agathon’s amicable refutation by Socrates on the one hand, and the drunken entrance of Alcibiades on the other. Agathon shows potential for philosophy whereas Alcibiades is the exemplar of what happens when somebody comes to philosophy without a harmonized soul.
Dissertation
"Imitations of Virtue: Plato and Aristotle on Non-Ideal Constitutions"
Committee: Julia Annas (chair), Rachana Kamtekar, Gerald Gaus, and Melissa Lane (external)
Plato and Aristotle both believe that in ideal circumstances the best form of government obtains when virtuous and knowledgeable people rule. But surprisingly, alongside their well-known views in ideal political philosophy, they also have rich and complex views on non-ideal political philosophy, and these views turn out to be deeply conservative. Plato and Aristotle recognize stability problems generated by non-ideal circumstances. Specifically, their views on the law’s role in habituation of character, and habituation’s role in ensuring the authority of the law lead them to think that the high costs of changing the existing legislation and constitutional arrangements normally outweigh the benefits gained.
Book Reviews
Review of Rebecca Stangl, Neither Heroes Nor Saints: Ordinary Virtue, Extraordinary Virtue, and Self-Cultivation, in Mind (2024), 133/529, 258–267.
Review of Panos Dimas, Melissa Lane, and Susan Sauvé Meyer (eds.), Plato's Statesman: A Philosophical Discussion, in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, published 3/3/2022.
Review of George Duke, Aristotle and Law: The Politics of Nomos, in the Philosophical Review (2021), 130/4, 583-587.
Review of Dominic O’Meara, Cosmology and Politics in Plato’s Later Works, in the Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie (2019), 101/2, 310–313.
Review of Joshua I. Weinstein, Plato's Threefold City and Soul, in the Review of Politics (2019), 81/4, 689–691.