Research plans for the near future 
 

• Transformative experience

As Laurie Paul has reminded us, transformative experiences pose a challenge for rational choice, since they can be both personally and epistemically transformative—our fundamental values may change and we may acquire experiences that we have never had before.  Paul has argued that these experiences pose a challenge to rational choice, since it is not clear which preferences to honour and we may not even be able to grasp crucial parts of accessible outcomes. I want to take this further by looking at the implication of transformative experience on attitude-sensitive wellbeing and the value of health states. I have done some preliminary work on this, but I want explore it further by focusing on the transformative experiences of illnesses, such as different forms of dementia. The plan is to do this in collaboration with Paul, Richard Pettigrew (Bristol), Richard Bradley (LSE), and Anna Mahtani (LSE). We will also invite researchers in health care ethics, psychology, and neuroscience. Parts of my work on this topic is intended to go into a book on wellbeing and changing attitudes.
 

• Value magnitudes and incomparability

Recently, there has been a (very) small revival in taking value magnitudes seriously. As has been shown by, Jake Nebel, Brian Hedden, and myself, this value magnitude realism has many virtues. However, since in general all magnitudes of the same kind are assumed to be comparable – e.g., one weight is either greater, lesser or the same as another weight – value magnitude realism seems to be committed to full comparability of values of the same kind. This seems rule out intuitive value judgments, such as the claim that Mozart is neither better than, worse than, nor equally as good an artist as Michelangelo. I want to to explore the prospects of denying value comparability while accepting value magnitude realism. I have done some preliminary work on this, but I want to develop it further by drawing on my ideas about comparisons of value across different categories (e.g., value as a composer versus value as a sculptor).
 

• Escaping impossibility theorems

Decision-makers are in a hurry to find morally justified responses to climate change. Population ethicists have thrown a spanner in the works by formulating various impossibility theorems that show that no theory about the value of population change can satisfy all the conditions we think such a theory must satisfy. What shall we do, if we do not know which condition(s) to give up? One relatively unexplored option is to view the satisfaction of a condition as a matter of degree. This opens up the possibility that some theories might overall come closer to full satisfaction of the conditions than others. I have already done some preliminary work by using the Kemeny-measure of distance. I want to test the robustness of  my results and see whether they can be applied to all impossibility theorems, if we relax some of the idealisations and consider other measures than the Kemeny one.
 

• Collective harm problems

According to the standard definition of a collective harm case, this is a case in which people together bring about a morally significant outcome, but no individual act seems to make a significant difference. Climate change is one prominent example. Individual denialists (John Broome’s term) drop the ‘seems’, and dwell on the question of whether one can have moral reason to act, if one would not make a significant difference. I want to explore how much this kind of collective harm problem depends on seeing the alternative actions as momentary rather than extended plans into the far future. Here I want to draw on the recent discussion on actualism and possibilism, to which I have myself contributed in the past.
 

• Ambivalence

The value of an alternative is determined by some set of different factors, e.g., knowledge, achievements, freedom, and pleasure. I want to argue that this multidimensionality explains why an attitude of ambivalence can be fitting. It can do this in different ways. One radical idea is to identify the overall value of an alternative with the distribution of its underlying value dimensions (D’Ambrosio & Hedden 2023). Value itself is then ambivalent, and it is fitting to respond to this value with an overall attitude that is ambivalent. A less radical idea is to assume that overall value is mono-dimensional but the fitting response should not just mirror overall value but should also be sensitive to the underlying value dimensions. I shall also argue that we need to distinguish between absolute ambivalence, a mixed feeling towards a single alternative, and comparative ambivalence, feeling torn between the alternatives in virtue of the big differences in value dimensions. The multidimensionality framework, the measure of degrees of fitting ambivalence, and the accounts of absolute and comparative ambivalence will be thoroughly developed in this project. 

Research Projects

Publications