Current Projects
An Analogy for Hegel's Theory of Punishment.
In this paper, I expand on my 2018 work to suggest how a correct understanding of Hegel's theory of punishment both traces the development of a system of justice and grows out of natural encounters. Here, I argue that - "Abstract Right" has retributionist account of non-judicial punishment
- "Abstract Right" does not present Hegel's account of judicial punishment.
- The complete account in "Civil Society" is still retributionist at its core but considers other factors in sentencing
- Certain unifier passages raised by Brooks do not overcome this
Revising draft paper
Kierkegaard and Lopsided Recognition
Before I started working on the Hegel and crime project, I started to research Kierkegaard's notion of recognition and compare it with Hegel's account of mutual recognition. For Kierkegaard, this occurs in several places and at least two pseudonyms: Johannes Climacus's Philosophical Fragments and Anti-Climacus's Sickness Unto Death. To make sure I was not missing any loose ends, I read the Philosophy of Right, and in the process, I found the current accounts of crime to be inadequate. The main focus of this project is to look at how Kierkegaard thinks we can have our identity consituted by an other (God) without us being necessary to give that other a coherent identity. This is very much the opposite of Hegel's notions in political philosophy where mutual recognition stands at the root of value.
This project is in the brain-storming phase.
Learning to Love the Dead: A Confucian Lesson for Kierkegaard Scholars
One of the more difficult passages in Kierkegaard's Works of Love is on loving someone who is already dead. In this paper, I deploy Confucian resources to help make sense of this and show that at least one overlap between Confucian and Kierkegaardian approaches to ethics is in their belief that relationships serve as sources of moral knowledge.This project is in the brain-storming phase.
Completed Projects in Philosophy
Kierkegaard’s Defence of Faith as Second-Order Partialism and Critique of Impartialism
While Katherine Dormandy claims Kierkegaard is an anti-epistemological partialist, Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling provides a second-order partialism that takes evidence and reason seriously but sees these considerations as exceeded for a self who stands in relationship with the absolute.This research was published in Australasian Philosophical Review.
Hegel's Complete Views on Crime and Punishment
In this article, I argue that Hegel's complete and mature view of crime and punishment is more robust than many interpretations of the Unrecht passage in the ‘Abstract Right’ section of Hegel's Elements of the Philosophy of Right suggest. First, I explain the value of revisiting the interpretation of Hegel as a simple retributionist in the contemporary debate. Then, I look at Hegel's treatment of crime and punishment in the section on abstract right to show the role of punishment in Hegel's account. Next, I argue that this needs to be situated in Hegel's broader social philosophy and that we can accomplish this by looking at how the Unrecht passage fits in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right’s dialectical structure. I do so by building on the sections on civil society and state in the part of Elements of the Philosophy of Right dealing with ethical life (Sittlichkeit), which include considerations of prevention and rehabilitation. I contend that this analysis reveals an account of punishment as more complicated than simple retribution.This research was published in Journal of the American Philosophical Association.
Putting Ruist and Hegelian Social Thought in Dialogue
This article first considers Hegel’s treatment of Ruist thought, especially the Berlin-era lectures.
While Hegel and Hegelian thought cannot integrate non-Western material, five interesting
analogues in their social thought deserve consideration: family as society’s relational foundation,
ritual as cultural language, necessity, rulers as relational centers, and tools for evaluating ritual.This research was published in Philosophy East and West.
Faith, Recognition, and Community: Abraham and “Faith-In” in Hegel and Kierkegaard
This article looks at “faith-in” and what Jonathan Kvanvig calls the “belittler objection” by comparing Hegel and Kierkegaard’s interpretations of Abram (later known as Abraham). I first argue that Hegel’s treatment of Abram in Spirit of Christianity and its Fate is an objection to faith-in. Building on this from additional Hegelian texts, this paper argues that Hegel’s objection arises from his social command account of morality. This paper then turns to Johannes de Silentio’s treatments of Abraham in Fear and Trembling and Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love to argue that Kierkegaard defends faith-in as part of a moderate divine command account of moral knowledge. Finally, this article concludes that the belittler objection is ultimately an objection to faith-in as a divine command source of moral knowledge or obligation rather than a social command source.This research was published in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.
How Relational Selfhood Rearranges the Debate between Feminists and Confucians
Stephanie Komashin joined me as a co-author in this paper where we look at the debate between Confucians and feminists anew. We contend that before we can really articulate whether "Confucians" and "feminists" agree we need to understand what each of the respective terms is supposed to mean. Both groups find common cause in highlighting a relational account of the self that seems neglected in Modern philosophy, but there are real differences both among and between feminists and Confucians about how relational the self should be / is.
This research was published in Feminist Encounters with Confucius.
Ethics is for Children: Revisiting Aristotle's Virtue Theory
In this book chapter, I argued that children can be virtuous agents in a semi-Aristotelian virtue ethics. To argue for this, I combined insights from the research of Daryl Tress and others in terms of Aristotle's views of children with Ackrill and Nagel’s analyses of the function-argument in the Nicomachean Ethics. I first look at how Aristotle viewed children within ethics. Here, we find that Aristotle rejects children as possible virtuous agents primarily because they have not reached maturity as adults. I then suggest an alternate approach where children could be virtuous agents and have their own form of Eudaimonia. Here, a central point is that they are already capable of some forms of human excellence, and that we can include their continued growth as a part of their excellence.This research was published in Philosophy of Childhood: Exploring the Boundaries.
How Kierkegaard can Help Us Understand Covering in Analects 13.18.
In this article, I looked at how Kierkegaard through his deliberation “Love covers a multitude of sins” in Works of Love can help in understanding yin ("covering") in Analects 13.18. I first explain the variety of ways that Kierkegaard suggests covering could work in the deliberation in Works of Love. I then apply this to the variety of interpretations of yin that are featured in a contemporary debate in China about Analects13.18 especially the question of whether yin means hiding or straightening. And then correspondingly whether this should be understood as a moral philosophy we should admire or detest. From these considerations, I maintain that there are good reasons to believe hiding is the best way.This research was published in Asian Philosophy.
A Hegelian Approach to Applied Ethics and Technology
In this paper, I argue that the concept of “object” (Das Objekt) in Hegel’s Encyclopedia Logic provides a framework for moral thought that can handle scientific discoveries in a robust and versatile way. I first support this by showing how developments in contemporary science can often pose seeming challenge to ethics. I then look at how Hegel’s concept of natural law determines his concept of objects. In this, Hegel proposes three concepts object: physical, chemical, and social with each involving a different form of objectivity. With this distinction, I conclude by showing how the relevant type for ethics is social objects and how this can provide a frame that can withstand many scientific discoveries for doing applied ethics.This research was published in Applied Ethics:Ethics in an Era of Emerging Technologies.
Anti-Climacus's Pre-emptive Critique of Heidegger's “Question Concerning Technology
In this article, I compare Martin Heidegger’s “Question Concerning Technology” and Anti-Climacus’s (Søren Kierkegaard’s Pseudonym’s) Sickness unto Death. I begin by presenting a brief account of Heidegger’s critique of technology centered on the problem of how technology draws the user out of authenticity (“Eigentlichkeit”). For Heidegger, the failure to relate to yourself correctly is “inauthenticity.” Dasein’s Proper relation is “authenticity” in existence towards the self’s utmost possibility, i.e. death. I then contrast this with the account of despair Anti-Climacus presents in Sickness unto Death. For Anti-Climacus, despair is a psychological concept that arises whenever the self is not properly related. For Anti-Climacus, what Heidegger calls “inauthenticity” describes one species of despair. Moreover, Anti-Climacus’ framework goes further by seeing Heidegger’s account of “authenticity” in the problem of technology as a form of despair and identifying the self’s completion as a self that relates itself to itself through its God-relation.This research was published in International Philosophical Quarterly.
PhD Dissertation
In my dissertation, I looked at relationality in moral selfhood. I spent the first chapter looking at Kant’s account of the moral self, which I argued was universal but neither dynamic nor relational. In the second chapter, I built on Hegel’s critique to better explain the relational critique and how it poses a problem for the Kantian model. I then compared the diverse relational account of the moral self in Confucius, Levinas, and Kierkegaard. In Confucius’ Confucianism, we find a relational account built on society, which I argued is inadequate for a universal ethics, because its mode of relationality is wholly dependent on culture. I then turned to Levinas where ethical relationality depends on relationship with the Other through “responsibility for Other,” but this, in my view, fails to integrate with “justice for all.” Finally, I looked at Kierkegaard’s account, which I think gives us the desiderata of a universal relationality through the idea of a self that relates itself to itself through its relation with its base (God) but that this theological price is difficult for many to accept.other
Maybe Happiness Is Loving Our Fathers: Confucius and the Rituals of Dad
In this article, I investigate the nature of fatherly love. Working from Confucius’s Analects, I argue that the most important concept is not rule-following but developing a good relationship with one's father. Building on the example of sheep-stealing Yang, I compare this with Plato's treatment of filial piety in the Euthyphro. In the Analects, it is considered appropriate to cover up for one's father whereas Plato advocates revealing this. I then turn to the Parable of the Prodigal Son in Matthew 15 to explicate the Confucian ideal of fatherhood.This research was published in Fatherhood and Philosophy.
A Transcendental Phenomenology that Leads out of Transcendental Phenomenology: Using Climacus' Paradox to Explain Marion’s Being Given
In this paper, I draw a parallel between Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus and Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenological account of revelation. By connecting Climacus’ notion of the paradox with Marion’s saturated phenomenon, I both defend what I see as similar in the two accounts and attack the clarity of Marion’s notion of saturated phenomenon. I first explicate Marion’s accusation of subject-centeredness against Husserl’s Cartesians Meditations which the transcendental ego receives from Descartes and Kant. I then look at how Marion uses this to motivate his concept of the saturated phenomenon. Finally, I argue that Climacus’s paradox accomplishes the same in a more philosophical way.This research was published in Quaestiones Disputatae.
History and Philosophical Method: Hegel, Stewart, and Chinese Religion
Most scholarship on Hegel's Lecture Philosophy of Religion has focused on either his description of religion in general or his interpretation of Christianity as consummate religion. Jon Stewart's recent "Hegel's Interpretation of the Religions of the World" provides the first contemporary English-language commentary that focuses on Hegel's treatment of determinate religion. First, Stewart hides a crucial but curious shift in the placement of Chinese religion in Hegel’s 1831 lecture by presenting a decade of lectures into his preferred unification. Second, Stewart mischaracterizes the course of Chinese thought such that it supplies an unwarranted defense for problems in Hegel’s account. Third and finally, even if we correct for the two preceding problems, Stewart misunderstands Hegel’s methodology in a way that causes him to misread the lectures as history.This research was published in Owl of Minerva.