Research

My current research projects focus on consent, promising, and theories of rights.

Below are some of the projects I am currently working on. Please contact me for drafts, questions, or comments!

The Value of Uptake in Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (2024)

Arguments for what consent is often appeal to its functions. For instance, some argue that because consent functions to express the consent-giver’s autonomous control over her normative boundaries, consent must consist in a mental state. In this paper I argue that consent has an often overlooked function, and that its having this function has consequences for our views of what consent is. I argue that consent has a relationship-shaping function: acts of consent can alter and enable personal relationships. This function grounds an argument for the following claim: some acts of consent cannot be morally transformative unless there is uptake, or acceptance, or cooperation, on the recipient’s part. That is to say, at least some acts of consent need to be “cosigned” by both parties. This rules out what I call “unilateral” conceptions of consent, according to which consent can be given by the giver alone, and nobody else needs to enter the picture.

Wrongs without Rights?

There is a difference between doing something that is morally wrong, and wronging someone in particular. For example: Texting while driving is wrong, whereas injuring a pedestrian because you were texting while driving is a wrong against that particular pedestrian. It has been common to assume that wrongs just are violations of the victim’s rights, but recent arguments suggest otherwise: there are also wrongs without rights violations. If this is so, then what is it to wrong someone? In this paper I propose one answer to this question by identifying two relations of moral accountability that are present wherever wrongs occur. I suggest that to wrong someone just is to be liable for repairing one’s actions to someone—the victim of one’s wrong—whose will has a distinctive role in determining what one ought to do by way of  moral repair.

Are There Any Imperfect Rights?

Imperfect duties (duties of beneficence, duties of gratitude, and so on) are standardly understood to not correlate with rights (e.g., one has no right to the gratitude of one’s beneficiaries). At the same time, it seems appropriate to say that imperfect duties are sometimes owed to particular others, and that failure to fulfil such a duty can wrong the person to whom it is owed. So the standing of a benefactor who is owed gratitude, for example, is akin to having a right in these respects. To account for these rights-like features, some have argued that we should posit imperfect rights as the correlatives of imperfect duty. In this paper, I argue that we can account for the relevant features without positing such rights; key to this is observing that imperfect rights can occasion directed wrongdoing without the violation of anyone’s rights.

Consent and Joint Decision

Some have argued that consent consists of a mental state; others have argued that consent consist of communication. On either account, consent is an action performed individually by the consent-giver. This paper proposes an alternative to these views, according to which consent can sometimes consist of a joint action performed together by the consent-giver and the consent-recipient.

Revoking Consent

A paper that investigates the commonly held idea that consent can always be revoked “unilaterally” by the person who gave it.

Sexual Promises and Rights to Refuse

A paper on sexual promises and the right to refuse sexual contact. 

Mobile Consent & Its Discontents

“Consent applications” are mobile phone applications that can be used to document users’ consent to a sexual encounter. In this paper I argue that this technology fundamentally misrepresents sexual consent by portraying it as a scripted interaction that precedes a sexual encounter. Sexual consent ought to be an ongoing process which lasts throughout the encounter. This shortcoming of the technology gives us a chance to discuss ongoing consent—which is often acknowledged to be important, but remains under-theorised in the philosophical literature—and its importance in some detail. I will also argue that introducing a mobile phone application into sexual relations raises serious concerns about privacy, surveillance, and the effect that such applications may have on young people’s ideas about sexual consent. 

Parasocial Partiality

A paper on the ethics of parasocial relationships and reasons of partiality. 

Doing things together with AI

A paper on joint action with artificial agents.