Publications
The central question I'm interested in is what it means to (mis)value others, and how and why our (mis)valuations of others matter morally. When do I count as valuing others correctly or incorrectly? To what extent does this depend on our mental activities, and to what extent on what we physically do and what the rest of society does? How may or should we respond to people who value others more or less than they morally ought to?
I often explore these questions in relation to specific issues in moral psychology, normative ethics, and political and social philosophy, such as moral address (especially gratitude, blame, and advice), moral equality and partiality, degradation and disrespect, duties to rescue and duties not to harm, and mental obligations. I also have long-standing interests in emotion theory, just war theory, rights theory, and feminist philosophy.
At the moment, I'm focusing on two specific projects:
A development and defence of the idea that morality includes evaluative duties: duties to correctly evaluate (some of) the moral matters that concern others. I argue that violations of these duties are purely mental wrongings and that their instantiation in further actions - mental or physical - makes those actions wrong too. This helps us understand the distinctive wrongness of degrading acts, the moral offensiveness of certain forms of address, and more! (This project has recently been awarded an NWO Veni Research Grant. See 'Veni' under 'Research' for more info.)
In a joint project with Gunnar Björnsson, I explore norms of agency distribution: norms calling for a balance in the agency administered by an agent to different values over time. We argue that these norms unify and explain a wide range of moral and political phenomena, including many responses to benefitting (e.g., gratitude) and wrongdoing (e.g., blame, "negative partiality").
- 2025
On Discounting Wrongdoers
Analysis Online First.
We are sometimes permitted to discount the interests of culpable wrongdoers relative to other people's interests. What explains this? One answer is that culpable wrongdoers deserve less consideration than others because of their culpable wrongdoing (the Desert View). Another is that we may be negatively partial towards wrongdoers because of our negative relationship with them (the Negative Partiality View). We reject both answers. The Desert View fails because it cannot explain how permissions to discount can be sensitive to relational facts. The Negative Partiality View fails because it cannot explain how permissions to discount can be agent-neutral, or independent of an existing relationship with the wrongdoer. We close by outlining a theory of permissible discounting that accounts for both its relationality and its agent-neutrality. - 2025
Gratitude and Rights
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 103(4): 1024–1038.
According to most philosophers of gratitude, we do not owe gratitude to people who merely honour our rights. In this paper, I argue that this view is mistaken: we can owe others gratitude even for their rights-conforming actions. - 2025
Moral Gratitude
Journal of Applied Philosophy 42(1): 115–130.
There are many examples of persons who appear to be grateful to other people's benefactors. In at least some of these examples, such third-party gratitude also seems fitting. However, these observations conflict with a widespread assumption in the philosophical literature about gratitude: that only beneficiaries can be fittingly grateful to benefactors. In this article, I argue that third-party gratitude exists and can be fitting, and that the assumption is therefore mistaken. More specifically, I defend two claims: (i) that there exists a kind of gratitude to benefactors that is experienced by third parties in their capacities as moral agents ('moral gratitude'); and (ii) that what makes this kind of gratitude fitting is the fact that, in benefitting the beneficiaries, the benefactors are responding to values that we, as moral agents, each have reason to care about and to want to see promoted. - 2024
Reciprocity, Inequality, and Unsuccessful Rescues
Utilitas 36(1): 64–82.
Forced choices between rescuing imperilled persons are subject to a presumption of equality. Unless we can point to a morally relevant difference between these persons' imperilments, each should get an equal chance of rescue. Sometimes, this presumption is overturned. For example, when one imperilled person has wrongfully caused the forced choice, most think that this person (rather than an innocent person) should bear the harm. The converse scenario, in which a forced choice resulted from the supererogatory action of one of the imperilled people, has received little attention in distributive ethics. I argue that, sometimes, we need not offer equal chances in these cases either. When the supererogatory act places the initially imperilled person under a reciprocal duty to bear risks for the supererogatory agent's sake in the forced choice, we may fulfil this duty for them if they are unable to do it themselves, by favouring the supererogatory agent. - 2022
Other-Sacrificing Options: Reply to Lange
Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 21(2): 290–297.
In "Other-Sacrificing Options," Benjamin Lange argues that, when distributing benefits and burdens, we may discount the interests of the people to whom we stand in morally negative relationships relative to the interests of other people. Lange's case for negative partiality proceeds in two steps. First, he presents a hypothetical example that commonly elicits intuitions favourable to negative partiality. Second, he invokes symmetry considerations to reason from permissible positive partiality towards intimates to permissible negative partiality towards adversaries. In this paper, I argue that neither the intuition elicited by Lange's example nor the invoked symmetry considerations support a permission for negative partiality. This does not mean that negative partiality is unjustified. It means only that the justification, if there is one, must take a different form. I end by suggesting an alternative justification of negative partiality, one that mirrors gratitude-based justifications of positive partiality rather than justifications based on intimacy. - 2017
Is Sex with Robots Rape?
Journal of Practical Ethics 5(2): 62–76.
Publisher ↗ Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics (3rd Annual)It is widely accepted that valid consent is a necessary condition for permissible sexual activity. Since non-human animals, children, and individuals who are severely cognitively disabled, heavily intoxicated or unconscious, lack the cognitive capacity to give valid consent, this condition explains why it is impermissible to have sex with them. However, contrary to common intuitions, the same condition seems to render it impermissible to have sex with robots, for they too are incapable of consenting to sex due to insufficient cognitive capacitation. This paper explores whether the intuition that non-consensual sex with robots is permissible can be vindicated, whilst preserving valid consent as a general requirement for permissible sexual activity. I develop and evaluate four possible ways to argue that there is a morally significant difference between robots on the one hand, and insufficiently cognitively capacitated humans and non-human animals on the other hand, to substantiate and justify the intuition that it is permissible to have non-consensual sex with the former but not with the latter.
- Forthc.
Gelijkheid ("Equality")
Basisboek Ethiek, ed. Eskens, Hopster, de Mesel & Nys (Amsterdam: Boom).
- Forthc.
Enemies and Rivals
Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Personal Relationships, ed. Betzler & Stroud (Oxford: OUP).
- 2024
Expressive Duties Are Demandable and Enforceable
Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol. 14, ed. Timmons (Oxford: OUP) 203–226.
According to an influential view about directed expressive duties (e.g., duties to express gratitude to benefactors, remorse to victims, forgiveness to wrongdoers), these duties do not have rights as their correlates, because they are not demandable and enforceable. The chapter argues that this view is mistaken. Like other directed duties, directed expressive duties are demandable and enforceable. While this does not entail that these duties have rights as their correlates, it does create a strong presumption of this being the case. This shifts the burden of proof from those who hold that expressive duties correlate with rights to those who deny it.
- 2026
Co-editor, Basisboek Ethiek
Textbook ethics for university-level education, with Jeroen Hopster, Benjamin de Mesel, and Thomas Nys. Amsterdam: Boom..
- 2025
- 2022
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A paper on the ethics of advice (with Jonas Haeg).
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A paper on agency balancing norms (with Gunnar Björnsson).
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A paper on agent-regret and counterfactuals.
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A paper on the possibility of mental wronging.
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A paper on the nature and wrong of degradation.
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A paper on the currency of distributive justice (with Gunnar Björnsson).
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A paper on interpersonal affecting.