Publications

[11] ‘Autism, Care, and the Limits of Destigmatization.' Committed to More Philosophy of Autism, J. L Anderson and S. Cushing (eds.) (with Sarah Arnaud)

[10] ‘The Science and Moral Psychology of Addiction: A Case Study in Integrative Philosophy of Psychiatry.’ Forthcoming in Crítica: Revista Hispanoamerica de Filosofía. (Special edition: ‘Current Themes in Philosophy of Psychiatry’.)

• Addiction is a complex empirical phenomenon, but its ultimate significance is to be understood in terms which allow us to appropriately modulate our feelings and judgments about those who suffer from it. For this reason, a fruitful methodology — which I call integrative philosophy of psychiatry — is to closely examine the best scientific descriptions available and to try to tease out their significance for the moral psychology of addiction. Taking account of epidemiology, behavioral science, animal studies and, chiefly, neuroscience, I argue for a view according to which addiction involves dysfunctional motivational states (which I call ‘hybrid intentions') as well as cognitive distortions. This argument can be made without needing to settle the traditional debate about whether addiction is a disease.

[9] ‘Delusions and Rationality.’ Forthcoming in The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Delusion, Ema Sullivan-Bissett (ed.) (with Adam Bradley)

• Delusional beliefs are paradigmatic examples of irrational states of mind. But as soon as we inquire more deeply into the relationship between delusions and rationality, we find ourselves in maze of questions and puzzles. In this chapter we try to work our way through this maze. We begin by establishing that delusions are beliefs, mental states that by nature are subject to rational evaluation. We then argue that delusions are irrational beliefs, and in particular that delusions violate principles of both substantive (epistemic) rationality as well as structural rationality. To bolster this case, we consider and reject a number views on which deny that delusions are irrational beliefs including Brendan Maher’s well-known view that delusions are rational responses to abnormal experiences. We then examine the prominent two-factor account of delusional belief, which builds on Maher’s proposal by posting a second, cognitive factor to explain delusional belief. This cognitive factor is intended to explain how delusional subjects depart from rationality. We end by considering the question of where to locate this departure from rationality in the course of the delusion.

[8] ‘Understanding, The Manifest Image, and ‘Postmodernism’ in Philosophy of Psychiatry.’ Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 31(1): 21-254. 2024. doi: 10.1353/ppp.2024.a922678

• Reply to commentaries on ‘Philosophy’s Role in Theorizing Psychopathology’ by S. Nassir Ghaemi and Chloe Saunders.

[7] ‘Philosophy’s Role in Theorizing Psychopathology.’ Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, 31(1): 1-12. 2024. doi: 10.1353/ppp.2024.a922675

• It is a mistake to think that any philosophical contribution to the study of psychopathology is otiose. I identify three non-exhaustive roles that philosophy can and does occupy in the study of mental disorder, which I call the agenda-setting role, the synthetic role, and the regulative role. The three roles are illustrated via consideration of the importance of Jaspers’ notion of understanding and its application to specific examples of mental disorder, including delusions of reference, Capgras delusion and other monothematic delusions, and clinical depression. Together the three roles assign to philosophy of psychopathology the task of determining how to situate the varieties of mental disorder within the system of interpretive and evaluative concepts that partially make up the dynamic but indispensable manifest image.

[6] ‘Interventionism and Intelligibility: Why Depression is not (Always) a Brain Disease'. The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, 49(2): 160-177. 2024. doi: 10.1093/jmp/jhae004

• Major Depressive Disorder (MDD) is a serious condition with a large disease burden. It is often claimed that MDD is a “brain disease.” What would it mean for MDD to be a brain disease? I argue that the best interpretation of this claim is as offering a substantive empirical hypothesis about the causes of the syndrome of depression. This syndrome-causal conception of disease, combined with the idea that MDD is a disease of the brain, commits the brain disease conception of MDD to the claim that brain dysfunction causes the symptoms of MDD. I argue that this consequence of the brain disease conception of MDD is false. It incorrectly rules out genuine instances of content-sensitive causation between adverse conditions in the world and the characteristic symptoms of MDD. Empirical evidence shows that the major causes of depression are genuinely psychological causes of the symptoms of MDD. This rules out, in many cases, the “brute” causation required by the brain disease conception. The existence of cases of MDD with non-brute causes supports the reinstatement of the old nosological distinction between endogenous and exogenous depression.

[5] ‘Monothematic Delusions and the Limits of Rationality’. The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, 74(3): 811-835. 2023. doi: 10.1086/714986. (With Adam Bradley)

• Monothematic delusions are delusions whose contents pertain to a single subject matter. Examples include Capgras delusion, the delusion that a loved one has been replaced by an impostor, and Cotard delusion, the delusion that one is dead or does not exist. Two-factor accounts of such delusions hold that they are the result of both an experiential deficit, for instance flattened affect, coupled with an aberrative cognitive response to that deficit. In this paper we develop a new expressivist two-factor account of delusion. In contrast to existing endorsement and explanationist accounts, which treat delusions as either explanations or endorsements of the contents of these disordered experiences, we hold that delusional beliefs have an expressive function: they characterize, in impressionistic terms, what the subject’s experience is like for them. We show how our account improves upon existing two-factor views in explaining the central features of monothematic delusions, in particular the way in which delusional subjects fall short of the ideal of rationality.

• Blog post on Imperfect Cognitions on this paper here.

[4] ‘Rawlsian Contractualism and Healthcare Allocation’. Diametros 18 (68): 9–23, 2021. doi: 10.33392/diam.1682

• The consideration of the problem of healthcare allocation as a special case of distributive justice is especially alluring when we only consider consequentialist theories. I articulate here an alternative Rawlsian non-consequentialist theory which prioritizes the fairness of healthcare allocation procedures rather than directly setting distributive parameters. The theory in question stems from Rawlsian commitments that, it is argued, have a better Rawlsian pedigree than those typically considered under that heading by non-consequentialists.. The alternative framework is worthy of consideration on its own merits, but it also casts light on two related difficulties with Torbjörn Tännsjö’s influential approach: (i) the limits of his supposedly ecumenical methodology, which is revealed to be dialectically suspect and (ii) issues with the type of abstraction and idealization from actual judgements and preferences which the approach requires.

[3] ‘Self-Deception as Omission’. Philosophical Psychology, 33 (5): 657-678, 2020. doi: 10.1080/09515089.2020.1751100

• In this paper, I argue against three leading accounts of self-deception and propose a heretofore overlooked route to self-deception. The central problem with extant accounts is that they are unable to balance two crucial desiderata: (a) to make the dynamics of self-deception (e.g., the formation of self-deceptive beliefs) psychologically plausible, and (b) to capture self-deception as an intentional phenomenon for which the self-deceiver is responsible. I argue that the three leading views all fail on one or both counts. However, I claim that many or most cases of self-deception conform to a different model, which I call ‘self-deception as omission.’ In these cases, the process of self-deceptive belief formation and the intentional act for which the self-deceiver is responsible come apart, allowing us to meet both desiderata. Self-deceptive beliefs are often formed by unconscious mechanisms closely analogous to “System 1” processes of dual-systems psychology, or by other mechanisms of motivated reasoning. The nascently self-deceptive subject then acquiesces in the comforting belief and commits an epistemic failure by allowing it to persist. If this is done for motivationally biased reasons – for example, preferring that the belief in question be true – then the subject is self-deceived and is blameworthy for her epistemic omission.

[2] ‘Rationalism, Optimism, and the Moral Mind.’ Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42, e153, 2019

• In this BBS commentary on Joshua May’s book Regarding Reason in the Moral Mind I chiefly offer and develop a suggestion concerning the core commitments of rationalism across the domains of moral psychology in the hopes of better illuminating why a rationalist picture of the mind can deliver us from pessimism. In particular, I suggest that what rationalism really seeks to capture is the way in which we are sensitive to normative considerations. Seen in this way, rationalism is more a commitment to our actions being justifiable in terms of reasons than it is to any substantive model of mental mechanics.

[1] 'Self-Deception in and out of Illness: Are some subjects responsible for their delusions?' Palgrave Communications, 3(15): 1-12, 2017. (Part of Self-knowledge in and outside of Illness, Sherrilyn Roush and Tuomas Pernu, eds.) 

• This paper raises a slightly uncomfortable question: are some delusional subjects responsible for their delusions? This question is uncomfortable because we typically think that the answer is pretty clearly just ‘no’. However, we also accept that self-deception is paradigmatically intentional behavior for which the self-deceiver is prima facie blameworthy. Thus, if there is overlap between self-deception and delusion, this will put pressure on our initial answer. This paper argues that there is indeed such overlap by offering a novel philosophical account of self-deception. The account offered is independently plausible and avoids the main problems that plague other views. It also yields the result that some delusional subjects are self-deceived. The conclusion is not, however, that those subjects are blameworthy. Rather, a distinction is made between blameworthiness and ‘attributability’. States or actions can be significantly attributable to a subject—in the sense that they are expressions of their wills—without it being the case that the subject is blameworthy, if the subject has an appropriate excuse. Understanding delusions within this framework of responsibility and excuses not only illuminates the ways in which the processes of delusional belief formation and maintenance are continuous with ‘ordinary’ processes of belief formation and maintenance, it also provides a way of understanding the innocence of the delusional subject that does not involve the denial of agency.

• Blog post on Imperfect Cognitions on this paper here.

Upcoming Presentations

‘Autism, Care, and the Limits of Destigmatization’, Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry, CUNY Graduate Center, New York City, May 6-7, 2024.

‘Delusions, Experience, Rationality, and Non-Literal Thought’ De La Salle University, Manila, May 10, 2024

‘The Science and Moral Psychology of Addiction’, Canadian Philosophical Association, McGill University, Montreal, June 18-21, 2024

Recent Presentations

‘Two Kinds of Depression, Two Kinds of Normativity’

• American University of Beirut, Department of Philosophy, Dec. 15, 2023

• The Philosophy of Psychiatry Webinar, Oct. 19, 2023

‘Does it Ever “Make Sense'“ to be Depressed?’, the University of Texas at Austin, Department of Philosophy, Nov. 11, 2023.

‘The Process and Product of Forgiveness’ at the Philadelphia Normative Philosophy Conference, the University of Pennsylvania Oct 12-13, 2023

‘Philosophy’s Role in Theorizing Psychopathology’ at the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, June 21-23, 2023

‘Depression, Intelligibility, and Non-Rational Causation’

• 10th Annual International Philosophy of Medicine Roundtable, University of Bologna, June 8-9, 2023

• Canadian Philosophical Association, York University, May 29-June 1, 2023

‘The Process and Product of Forgiveness’ at the National University of Singapore, May 2-3, 2023

‘Depression, Intelligibility, and Non-Rational Causation’ at the North Carolina Philosophical Society, Duke University, March 4, 2023.

'Monothematic Delusions: Intelligibility Without Rationality’, Clemson University, Department of Philosophy and Religion, Feb. 17, 2022.

‘Interventionism and Intelligibility’

• Moravian University, Department of Philosophy, March 11, 2022

• Minot State University, Division of Social Science, Feb. 25, 2022

• St. Norbert College, Department of Philosophy, Feb. 9, 2022

‘Monothematic delusions: An expressivist two-factor account’ (joint work with Adam Bradley) at Canadian Philosophical Association annual congress, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, May 31-June 3, 2019

‘Self-deception as Omission,’ American University of Beirut, February 21, 2019

‘Monothematic delusions: An expressivist two-factor account’ (joint work with Adam Bradley) at the APA Eastern division, New York City, January 7-10, 2019

‘Monothematic delusions: An expressivist two-factor account’ (joint work with Adam Bradley)

• Inaugural meeting of the Australasian Society for Philosophy and Psychology, Macquarie University, Sydney, December 5-7, 2018

• 45th meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology, University of Michigan, July 9-11, 2018.

‘Self-deception as Omission’ at the analytic philosophy forum, Shandong University, Jinan, China, October 25, 2018

'Addiction as desensitizing vulnerability: A framework for excuse'

• Philosophical Moral Psychology: An International Meeting of Classic and Empirically Informed Philosophy Ludwig Maximilians University, Munich, July 22-25, 2018

• Canadian Philosophical Association meeting, Université du Québec à Montréal, June 4-7, 2018

Work In Progress

A paper about the relation between affect and cognition (under review)

A paper about endogenous and exogenous depression (under review)

A paper about depression and normativity (under review)

A paper about forgiveness (draft in progress)

A paper about contractualism and socialism (draft in progress)

A paper about burnout (draft in progress)

Dissertation: On the Fringes of Moral Responsibility: Skepticism, self-deception, addiction, and delusion

My dissertation is a collection of essays under the theme of moral responsibility 'at the margins'. I begin with a chapter defending and developing a theory of morally responsible agency (a version of so-called 'reasons responsiveness' theories). In the second chapter I develop and defend a novel philosophical account of self-deception which both addresses difficulties present in competing views and makes sense of self-deception as an intentional phenomenon for which self-deceivers are responsible. In the third chapter I leverage my theory of self-deception to ask about the extent to which there is overlap between self-deception and clinical delusion. I conclude that there is a significant overlap, and that this sheds valuable light on the form of epistemic agency involved in the dynamics of delusion maintenance, and does so in such a way that allows responsibility judgements to get a foothold. In the fourth chapter I turn to addiction, appealing to results from the previous chapters to articulate a nuanced position concerning the extent to which addicts are morally responsible agents and the extent to which they share features with the self-deceived.