Many of our everyday choices take place within sprawling and complex political structures and processes that bring about outcomes that we view as harms. Yet, because an individual's actions do not contribute measurably ...

In this dissertation, I defend a novel analysis of emotional expression, and then use it to explore the myriad ways in which emotional expressions function in communication. I argue that emotional expressions may be best ...

Moods are powerful forces in our lives. When we enter into a mood—such as an anxious, irritable, depressed, bored, tranquil, or cheerful mood—we often find ourselves thinking, feeling, and acting in ways that are out of ...

There is growing interest in using non-coercive interventions to promote and protect public health, in particular "health nudges." Behavioral economist Richard Thaler and law scholar Cass Sunstein coined the term nudge to ...

Ethical theorists have traditionally analyzed duties, both individual and collective, into two categories: duties to others and duties to oneself. Reflection upon the moral domain, however, suggests cases in which an ...

Desire-fulfillment (DF) theories and objective list (OL) theories are the two dominant types of theories of human well-being. I argue that DF theories fail to capture the good part of `good for', and that OL theories fail ...

Nearly everyone believes that we have special moral obligations to care for the children we create. Surprisingly, a satisfying philosophical justification of this belief has proved elusive. Causalist accounts ground these ...

The concept of sacrifice harbors challenging puzzles and occupies an integral but neglected place in discussions of the problem of overly demanding moral duties. I argue that sacrificing is a distinctive type of act ...

The goal of this dissertation is to explore a new answer to the very old question, "Why be moral?" Or, as the question is often phrased today, "What reason does one have to be moral?" I begin my investigation into this ...

Moral reasons are considerations that count in favor of or against actions in light of a moral standard. They can be functionally defined as authoritative guides to morally right action. Embedded in this concept is a deep ...