Armchair Opinions

I have a Masters degree in Philosophy from the University of South Carolina where I wrote a thesis on Immanuel Kant’s political philosophy under Konstantin Pollok. I am currently doing a PhD at the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) in the project “Universal Moral Laws” under Pauline Kleingeld. I am interested in Kant’s legal and political philosophy as well as contemporary jurisprudence and republicanism. Predictably, then, my favorite philosophical work is Kant’s Groundwork to the Metaphysics of Morals. This work contains, in my mind, some of most important ideas for the possibility of universal and objective moral laws.

Does Walzer’s pluralism about political “goods” make sense?

By / / Political philosophy, Value Theory / ,

Thank you, Eoin O’Sullivan, for an important question. A common understanding of justice – namely, “distributive justice” – is that we distribute certain goods fairly across a certain population. Goods represent the fundamental interests of citizens. Some political philosophers have argued that there are certain “primary goods” that are universal across any given political community […]

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Is it moral to have a child to give meaning to your life?

By / / Ethics (Moral Philosophy) / , ,

Thank you, Daniele Grosso, for such a heavy question. The answer to this question partly depends on what we mean by “meaning” and whether the pursuit of meaning is a morally permissible motivation to have a child. Perhaps we mean something like “life satisfaction”, which is (roughly) an overall evaluation of the quality of our

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Should we enjoy good art by evil people?

By / / Aesthetics, Ethics (Moral Philosophy) /

Is it ethical to watch House of Cards after the allegations against Kevin Spacey? Or to read Dostoevsky after reading his confession about raping a girl? Thank you, Ajit Deshmukh, for an important question. In an age of cancel culture, this question might seem to obviously bring a positive response. Of course, we shouldn’t teach/enjoy/celebrate

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What is more important: people’s intentions or people’s actions?

By / / Ethics (Moral Philosophy), Philosophy of mind / ,

Thank you, George Smith, for such an important question. First, some clarifying remarks. By asking about the relative importance between intention and action, I assume that what is meant by “action” is actually the consequence or outcome of the action. For instance, when Smith shoots Jones, the outcome would be the death, injury, or perhaps,

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Can science determine morality? If so, how?

By / / Ethics (Moral Philosophy), Philosophy of science, Value Theory / , , ,

Thank you, Andy Chartier, for such an intriguing question. Very generally, science is a methodological investigation into physical phenomena that aims at describing the actual world with the highest possible precision. Morality is an inquiry into what sorts of things we ought to value (compassion over hate) and what sorts of things we ought to

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Do you think we can hold historical figures to the same ethical and moral standards of today?

By / / Ethics (Moral Philosophy), Philosophy of human nature, Political philosophy, Value Theory / , , , , , ,

Thank you, Heather Bennett, for a very important question. When we ask whether we should hold historical figures to the standard of modern morality, there is perhaps an implicit premise that the societies of the past and our own society have different moral standards. This may assume that moral standards are sensitive to different cultures

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Is masculinity necessarily toxic?

By / / Feminist philosophy, Philosophy of human nature / , , , , , , ,

Thank you, Frankie Belton, for such a stirring question! When we ask a question about whether something (A) is necessarily something else (B), we are asking whether there can ever be an A that is not also a B. In other words, what we are asking is not whether there are A’s that are also

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Is honesty always the best policy?

By / / Ethics (Moral Philosophy), Value Theory / , , , ,

Thank you, Roy Head, for such an interesting question! Hopefully this will help… Imagine you are in your house quietly watching your 10th episode of The Great British Baking Show while drinking wine out of a coffee mug when, all of a sudden, you hear a desperate knock on the door. You tear yourself away

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Does self-improvement come at the cost of being true to oneself?

By / / Epistemology, Philosophy of human nature, Philosophy of mind / , , ,

Thank you, Alex Impey, for such a profound question! I take the worry to be that Alex A (AA), who wants to eat less fast food (say), feels as though she is alienating her ‘true self’, Alex B (AB), who wants to eat as much fast food as she wants. A full treatment of the

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