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OVERVIEW
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My research concentrates on aesthetics, ethics, and the intersection between these realms of value. In my doctoral thesis, I defended the moral beauty view, whereby the moral virtues are beautiful, and the moral vices ugly character traits. Currently, I am working on beauty and taste, as well as a few side projects. Specifically, I am developing a hybrid theory of beauty, that sheds light on its connection to other values, and explains its powerful hold over us, as well as its role in important human undertakings, like scientific exploration and ethical behaviour. In addition to my main project, I am currently writing articles on issues in the philosophy of film; the aesthetics and ethics of nature; the aesthetics and ethics of design; as well as moral psychology and value theory. In the latter, I'm especially interested in naturalist theories of ethical and aesthetic value, elaborating on my views concerning the relationship between personality traits studied by psychologists and the virtues, and seeking to see how it can all fit under an exemplarist framework in which beauty plays a central role.
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PUBLICATIONS​​​
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"Positive Aesthetics and Ugliness"
In: Glenn Parsons, Ned Hettinger, and Sandra Shapshay (Eds.), Routledge Handbook of Nature and Environmental Aesthetics (London: Routledge, 2025), pp. 201-213 [link].
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The view that everything is beautiful has been attractive to philosophers since antiquity. Today, few hold this view—known as positive aesthetics—save in relation to pristine nature. This piece will explore some of the most prominent defences of positive aesthetics with regard to nature, whereby all untouched nature is beautiful, vis-à-vis the allegedly obvious fact that some things in nature are irredeemably ugly. I begin by elucidating the theory of positive aesthetics with regard to nature in Section 1. Section 2 discusses the two most prominent contemporary accounts of ugliness, one based on disgust and one on deformity, and defends a deformity-related theory of ugliness. Subsequently, I explore several defences of positive aesthetics against the objection that some nature is ugly, which fall roughly under two approaches: a cognitive one, discussed in Section 3, and an ethical one, discussed in Section 4. In Section 5, I argue that neither of these approaches succeeds at safeguarding a strong enough positive aesthetics, whereby every individual natural object is beautiful, provided that it is normal, and whereby most cases of ugliness in objects that are either not normal or dead, diseased, etc., can be parts of beautiful processes or greater wholes if aptly contextualised. Instead, I propose and defend a novel, hybrid view—based on a corresponding hybrid version of the theory of functional beauty—which, I claim, can allow for such positive aesthetics.
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"Stepping Into Ill-Fitting Shoes: The Rewards and Perils of Empathy With Rough Heroes"
In: Katerina Bantinaki, Efi Kyprianidou, and Fotini Vassiliou (Eds.), Empathy and the Aesthetic Mind: Perspectives from Fiction and Beyond (London: Bloomsbury, 2025), pp. 149-170 [link].
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Recent years have seen considerable philosophical interest in empathy and its role in fiction, as well as in what have come to be known as ‘rough heroes’ (Eaton 2012), namely (usually) fictional characters who are deeply morally problematic yet also charismatic, attractive and whom audiences are invited and expected to like. Some, including myself, have explored the ethical implications of works featuring such, and, even more recently, a number of philosophers have concentrated on the question that shall preoccupy us here: whether or how empathy features in our engagement with rough heroes, and whether there are any distinctive benefits and risks associated with such empathy.
I begin by briefly explaining our key notions: empathy and the rough hero (RH). I then consider what reasons we have for thinking that certain rough-hero works (RHW) prescribe empathy for RHs and that proper engagement with such characters involves empathic responses. In Section 10.3, I turn to discussing some of the key benefits and risks that have been associated with such empathy, casting some doubt on current optimism, though not dismissing the value of empathy for rough heroes altogether. I argue, however, that such discussions understate the importance of two things. First, that how prescriptions for empathy are handled within a work is absolutely essential to whether or not they contribute to or detract from the ethical value of the artwork in question, and that there is much greater diversity on this score than current discourse would have us think. Second, that proper engagement of audiences who empathize with rough heroes places increasing demands on both the aesthetic and ethical sensibility of such audiences for any potential rewards to be reaped and for any potential perils to be avoided. I explore these two issues, respectively, in Sections 10.4 and 10.5, and sum up my arguments in a conclusion.
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"Which Beauty? What Taste? Reflections on the Importance of the Philosophy of Beauty and Taste"
+ 'Hope in Beauty – A Response to My Commentators'
Debates in Aesthetics 19/2 (2025): 9-32 + 75-87 [link].
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In this paper, I reflect on the importance of the traditional conceptual pair of beauty and taste. Despite recent proclamations within philosophy that beauty is making a comeback, the concept still provokes confusion. I trace such confusion, in part, to philosophers increasingly viewing beauty—in the so-called narrow, common-sense way—as an essentially shallow and thin concept. However, in stark contrast to most philosophers today, I observe that ‘beauty’, in the narrow sense, allowed philosophers in the past—not unlike many laypersons today—to see beauty as linked to our most fundamental values, speaking of beauty of intellect, moral beauty, or the beauty of theorems, as well as artistic and natural beauty. And it is this understanding of beauty that was seen as a fundamental component of a flourishing life. Thus, to think of beauty as shallow and thin is not just undesirable, but evinces an impoverished outlook on aesthetics and value more generally.
I begin by giving some background on beauty’s alleged comeback in recent philosophy. I then note that in recent years, this comeback has concentrated on aesthetic value rather than beauty, which is often dismissed as less important. I suggest that this is at least partly due to an association between, or a running together of, three distinctions: between a narrow and a broad sense of beauty; between beauty as a thin and a thick concept; and between beauty that is easy, sensuous, and shallow on the one hand, and deep, profound, and meaningful, on the other. I argue that useful as these distinctions may be, they are unrelated to one another. Importantly, there is a distinct concept of beauty in the narrow sense that is thick, neither easy nor shallow, and inextricably tied to form, pleasure, and (non-aesthetic) value. However, whether an alleged instance of beauty, or indeed a person’s or group’s conceptions and experiences of beauty, are easy and shallow or profound and meaningful, turns on another recently disparaged, yet central concept—namely, taste. If we wish to better understand and promote the profound, meaningful, and enlightening varieties of beauty, we should ensure that the conceptual pair of beauty and taste stand at the forefront of our philosophical enquiries.
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"On Beauty and Wellformedness"
British Journal of Aesthetics 65/2 (2025): 257-282 [link].
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Taking my cue from the longest-standing theory of beauty to date, which identified beauty with formal properties such as order, harmony, and proportion, I argue that wellformedness—understood under a tripartite account comprising abstract, categorial, and functional species—is a necessary condition for beauty, which itself comprises three corresponding species. To this end, I offer a new conception of wellformedness along with a clear taxonomy of both beauty and wellformedness. My account reverses the common tendency to treat species of beauty that are independent of considerations of objects’ functions or kinds as paradigmatic and others as derivative, construing instead all three species as interrelated. In doing so, my proposal sheds considerable light on the concept of beauty, provides a measure of objectivity in our understanding thereof, clarifies the conceptual terrain in the philosophy of beauty, and elucidates some central links between beauty, form, and our interests and values.
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"Design and Value: The Ethical Nature of Beautiful Design"
Journal of Comparative Literature and Aesthetics 48/1 (2025): 44-61 [link].
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Design theory is increasingly acknowledging the ethical nature of Design. At the same time, philosophers are becoming increasingly aware of the aesthetic potential of Design, and of its distinctive claim to beauty. Yet Design theorists and philosophers alike have failed to note the connection between the ethical nature of Design and its beauty. In this article, I argue that beautiful design is fundamentally ethical in nature. To this end, I develop what I call an axiological conception of functional beauty, whereby beauty is linked to other values, I broaden the notion of functions relevant to design to accommodate the many possible affordances of Design objects, and I argue that beautiful design is design that manifests deep, ethical, concern: beautiful design is care-full design. I suggest that this can take a number of forms, and seek to distill some of these through detailed discussion of several examples of beautiful design.
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"Delineating Beauty: On Form and the Boundaries of the Aesthetic"
Ratio 37 (2024): 76-87 [link].
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Philosophical aesthetics has recently been expanding its purview— with exciting work on everyday aesthetics, somaesthetics, gustatory aesthetics, and the aesthetics of imperceptibilia like mathematics and human character—reclaiming territory that was lost during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, when the discipline begun concentrating almost exclusively on the philosophy of art and restricted the aesthetic realm to the distally perceptible. Yet there remains considerable reluctance towards acknowledgng the aesthetic character of many of these objects. This raises an important question—partly made salient again by the ongoing expansion of the aesthetic domain, and part by the fact that many still seem resistant to this aesthetic diversification—which aestheticians seem to avoid: what, if anything, constrains the scope of beauty or the aesthetic? I argue that form, construed as comprising a degree, however minimal, of experienceable complexity, is necessary and sufficient for an object's candidature for the possession of aesthetic properties. Such a condition serves to discriminate between attempts to expand the scope of the aesthetic that are legitimate and those that are not. If correct, my view suggests that the aesthetic realm, though not limitless, is very broad indeed—but this, I think, is as it should be.
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"On the Importance of Beauty and Taste"
Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 92 (2022): 229-252 (link).
ABSTRACT: We have all heard people say‘Beauty is only skin-deep’, or ‘Beauty is in the eye of the beholder’: our culture promulgates a conception of beauty as subjective, superficial, and independent of other values like moral goodness or knowledge and understanding. Yet our taste in beauty affects many aspects of our lives, sometimes playing a decisive– and often detrimental– role in areas as wide-ranging as our identity and self-esteem, our morally salient decisions, and our relationship to the environment. This presents us with a choice: we can either ignore the facts–leaving our conception of beauty unchanged and allowing our taste to influence much in our lives while either not acknowledging such influence, or perhaps seeking to reprimand it; or we can take the power of beauty seriously and seek to harmonise our taste with our values. I argue for the latter option and propose a way of bringing beauty and taste in line with what matters to us using the notion of functional beauty. Adopting this strategy, I suggest, can have a powerful–and positive–impact on our self-esteem and wellbeing, our relationship to others, as well as our attitudes towards the environment.
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"Virtue and Vice on TV: Television and Ethical Reflection"
In Laura D'Olimpio, Panos Paris, and Aidan Thompson (eds.), Educating Character Through the Arts, (London: Routledge, 2022) (link).
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ABSTRACT: Television series are one of the most popular and sophisticated narrative artworks of our time. Like most narrative artworks, television series deal with complex questions, many of which are of an ethical nature. This has been noticed in the academic literature, which has focused on the prevalence of antiheroes or ‘rough heroes’ on television, and the capacity of television to elicit positive responses to such characters. What has remained largely unexplored, however, is the role that such series and characters can play in our moral thinking and in enhancing our character. This chapter proposes that television series can enhance ethical reflection by making us both more aware of and sensitive to the multifarious ways in which character is shaped and subsequently manifested, and more reflective vis-à-vis our own moral judgement of character. I focus on televisual rough-hero works, broadly conceived, which do so in a distinctive way. Specifically, they not only provide us with complex characterological landscapes, and elicit our emotional engagement and investment in several characters, but crucially also engage us in what I will call an elenctic pattern: a sustained sequence of affirmation and questioning of both the moral dimensions of characters and events, and our own reactions to them. This enriches our thinking about character by getting us to examine the workings of our own moral judgement, notice inconsistencies and biases, and appreciate the richness and complexity involved in such judgements and their objects. Although the elenctic pattern is not unique to television, television series provide a distinctively suitable medium and format for it, offering it unprecedented power and scope. I argue that this is because of their length, serialised structure, and what I call their narrative malleability. Ultimately, then, though much of my argument focuses on a particular genre, this chapter points to the broader potential of television for character education.
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"The Aesthetics of Ethics: Exemplarism, Beauty, and the Psychology of Morality"
The Journal of Value Inquiry 56 (2022), pp. 601-625 (link).
ABSTRACT: Linda Zagzebski recently put forward a new theory, moral exemplarism, that is meant to provide an alternative to theories like consequentialism and deontology, and which proposes to define key moral terms by direct reference to exemplars. The theory’s basic structure is straightforward. A virtuous person is defined as a person like that, where that points to individuals like Leopold Socha, Confucius, Jesus Christ, and so on. A key component of this theory is the function played by the emotions, specifically the emotion of admiration, which helps us identify moral exemplars, inspires our emulation of them, and grounds moral motivation. In other words, admiration tracks persons like that. The aim of this article is to show that unless moral exemplarism recognises and incorporates an aesthetic dimension to morality, as did, for instance, eighteenth-century sentimentalists by recognising the categories of moral beauty and ugliness, the theory suffers important theoretical difficulties, whilst failing to yield some of the theoretical merits that it boasts. To this end, I will cast doubt on the prominent role accorded to the emotion of admiration for morality, arguing that it has to either be qualified as a specific kind of admiration––namely that which takes the beautiful as its object––or be replaced altogether with the affective response to the beautiful, a mark of which is pleasure or delight in the contemplation of an object. In short, an aesthetics of character is necessary in order to properly theorise the affective and motivational components of morality under an exemplarist framework.
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"Functional Beauty, Pleasure, and Experience"
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 98:3 (2020), pp.516-530 (link).
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ABSTRACT: I offer a set of sufficient conditions for (a kind of) beauty, drawing on Parsons and Carlson’s account of ‘functional beauty’. First, I argue that their account is flawed, whilst falling short of its promise of bringing comprehensiveness and unity to aesthetics. Instead, I propose, the account should be modified to state that if an object is well-formed for its function(s) and pleases competent judges in so far as it is thus experienced, then it is (functionally) beautiful. I argue that my proposal offers greater informativeness, comprehensiveness, and unity—accommodating, inter alia, mathematical, literary, and moral beauty—whilst surviving reflective scrutiny.
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"Moral Beauty and Education"
Journal of Moral Education 48:4 (2019), pp.395-411 (link).
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ABSTRACT: This article seeks to rekindle a version of the age-old view that aesthetic education can contribute to the development of virtue. It proceeds as follows. First, it introduces the moral beauty view, whereby the moral virtues are beautiful, and the moral vices ugly, character traits. Second, two ways in which moral beauty and ugliness can manifest themselves are considered: in people and in artworks. Third, it is argued that character education couched partly in aesthetic terms, and coupled with the cultivation of a sensitivity to moral beauty and ugliness, promise a solid and motivationally robust anchor for moral character development. It is suggested that introducing the notions of moral beauty and ugliness in our conceptual repertoire, coupled with the presence of moral beauty in our surroundings, can undergird more traditional pathways to virtue, whilst being congenial to the maintenance of virtue. Before closing, three objections against these suggestions are addressed, and some avenues for exploring the notion of moral beauty vis-à-vis moral motivation and education are proposed.
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"The 'Moralism' in Immoralism: A Critique of Immoralism in Aesthetics"
British Journal of Aesthetics 59:1 (2019), pp.13-33 (link).
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ABSTRACT: According to immoralists, some artworks are better aesthetically in virtue of their immorality. A. W. Eaton recently offered a novel defence of this view, seeking to overcome shortcomings in previous accounts, thereby occasioning a reconsideration of immoralism. Yet, as I argue in this paper, Eaton’s attempt is unsuccessful, insofar as it consists partly of inadequately supported claims, and partly—and more interestingly, albeit paradoxically––of covert moralist assumptions that are, eo ipso, incompatible with immoralism. I then turn to a parallel debate in ethics concerning the possibility of admirable immorality, suggesting that a consideration of the state of that debate further supports my argument against immoralism. I close by suggesting some strategies by which immoralists may offer a rejoinder, although I note that their prospects are rather dim, not least because available defences of immoralism and similar positions all seem to share the same flawed pattern.
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"On Form, and the Possibility of Moral Beauty"
Metaphilosophy 49:5 (2018), pp.711-729 (link).
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ABSTRACT: There is a tendency in contemporary (analytic) aesthetics to considerably restrict the scope of things that can be beautiful or ugly. This peculiarly modern tendency is holding back progress in aesthetics and robbing it of its potential contribution to other domains of inquiry. One view that has suffered neglect as a result of this tendency is the moral beauty view, whereby the moral virtues are beautiful and the moral vices are ugly. This neglect stems from an assumption to the effect that virtues and vices simply cannot be beautiful or ugly. The aim of this paper is twofold. First, it develops an account of form, under which, it argues, possession of form suffices for an object’s candidature for beauty and ugliness. Second, it argues that, under the foregoing proposal, the moral beauty view turns out to be a coherent position, and so should be taken seriously in both aesthetics and ethics.
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"The Empirical Case for Moral Beauty"
Australasian Journal of Philosophy 96:4 (2018), pp.642-656 (link).
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ABSTRACT: Although formative of modern value theory, the moral beauty view––which states that moral virtue is beautiful and moral vice ugly––is now mostly neglected by (analytic) philosophers. The two contemporary defences of the view mostly capitalise on its intuitive attractiveness, but to little avail: such considerations hardly convince sceptics of what is nowadays a rather unpopular view. Historically, the view was supported by thought experiments; and although these greatly increase its plausibility, they also raise empirical questions, which they leave unanswered. Here, I offer a novel defence of the moral beauty view capitalising on empirical evidence and arguing via an inference to the best explanation.
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"The Deformity-Related Conception of Ugliness"
British Journal of Aesthetics 57:2 (2017), pp.139-160 (link).
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ABSTRACT: Ugliness is a neglected topic in contemporary analytic aesthetics. This is regrettable given that this topic is not just genuinely fascinating, but could also illuminate other areas in the field, seeing as ugliness, albeit unexplored, does feature rather prominently in several debates in aesthetics. This paper articulates a ‘deformity-related’ conception of ugliness. Ultimately, I argue that deformity, understood in a certain way, and displeasure, jointly suffice for ugliness. First, I motivate my proposal, by locating a ‘deformity-related’ conception of ugliness in aesthetic tradition, offering examples in support, and rejecting related alternative suggestions. Second, I argue that the proposal boasts considerable merits. Not only does it capture much of what we ordinarily think of as ugly, but it also comprises an objective criterion for ugliness, offers unity and comprehensiveness, and is informative and explanatorily potent. Third, I discuss a number of objections, thereby demonstrating that the proposal withstands reflective scrutiny.
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"Scepticism About Virtue and the Five-Factor Model of Personality"
Utilitas 29:4 (2017), pp.423-452 (link).
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ABSTRACT: Considerable progress in personality and social psychology has been largely ignored by philosophers, many of whom still remain sceptical concerning whether the conception of character presupposed by virtue theory is descriptively adequate. Here, I employ the five-factor model of personality, currently the consensus view in personality psychology, to respond to a strong reading of the situationist challenge, whereby most people lack dispositions that are both cross-situationally consistent and temporally stable. I show that situationists rely on a false dichotomy between character traits and situations, and that evidence supports the empirical adequacy of the sorts of character traits presupposed by virtue ethics. Additionally, I suggest that the personality traits of the five-factor model are relevant to virtue theory, insofar as they are malleable, morally salient, and seem to structurally parallel Aristotelian virtues and vices. Thus, contra situationism, the five-factor model supports the descriptive adequacy of a virtue-theoretical framework.
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WORK IN PROGRESS
(NB. This list includes papers that are still in nascent form, and so subject to change)
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[1 redacted article under review]
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“The Inexhaustible Beauty of Plants”
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"The Doctrine of the Mean: Virtue, Taste, and Aesthetics"
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"Nature and Culture: A Reconsideration of Neo-Aristotelian Ethical Naturalism"
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OTHER
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Aesthetics, Ethics, and Character: A Defence of the Moral Beauty View (PhD Thesis)
[Full text available upon request.]
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ABSTRACT: My thesis defends a view that has long been out of fashion in philosophy. This view, which I label the moral beauty view, states that if a quality is a moral virtue, then it is a beautiful character trait and, conversely, if a quality is a moral vice, then it is an ugly character trait. A cornerstone of value theory throughout the eighteenth century, the moral beauty view suddenly disappeared in the nineteenth century. Here, I begin by offering a brief historical survey of the moral beauty view from British eighteenth-century philosophy to date, and isolate some central tenets and worries. Subsequently, I advance three arguments in defence of the view, dispelling major worries along the way. First, I argue that a sufficient condition for something’s being capable of being either beautiful or ugly is that it possesses form. The moral virtues and vices have form. Hence, the moral virtues and vices can be beautiful or ugly. Second, I argue that if an object is deformed and displeases competent appreciators in being experienced as deformed, then that object is ugly. Under the dominant meta-ethical position in virtue ethics, the moral vices satisfy the conditions for something’s being deformed. Additionally, the moral vices displease competent appreciators in contemplation. Hence, the moral vices are ugly character traits. Third, I articulate an empirically-testable formulation of the view, according to which if someone judges another to be more (or less) morally virtuous (or vicious), she or he will judge that person to be more (or less) beautiful (or ugly). I present substantial empirical evidence in support of this hypothesis. I then argue that the moral beauty view is the best explanation of the relevant phenomena. Finally, I summarise my arguments and discuss some major potential implications of the moral beauty view for debates in aesthetics and ethics. I show how the moral beauty view can inform debates concerning the interaction between aesthetic and cognitive value, aesthetic and moral value, and the feasibility of a virtue aesthetics; it also has considerable, if not radical, implications for scholarship and interpretation of philosophers as diverse as Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Hume, and Smith. Finally, the moral beauty view has important novel implications for moral motivation and education.
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