What are rights and why do they matter? Thinking about these questions has led me to develop a view I call 'relational primitivism': primitivist because the account is non-reductive about relational norms like rights; relational because such norms structure interpersonal relations of respect and recognition. I've been exploring this view as a novel account of numerous aspects of the normative domain: rights, respect, dignity, moral obligation, moral equality, lying, poverty, or cosmopolitan right. More recently, I've been exploring whether relational primitivism can help us understand the very nature of norms (like goodness or the ought) -- leading me to explore a novel form of metanormative constitutivism.
For the next while, I plan to develop further a relational primitivist view in four projects.
1. A book on dignity and rights commissioned by Cambridge University Press for the Elements in Philosophy of Law (due in mid-'23)
2. An exploration of the non-deontic relational normativity of love.
3. A series of papers on Kant's practical philosophy, exploring the extent to which reflection on Kant's dispositionalist metaphysics supports a relational reading of his account of basic normative phenomena -- like the nature of rights, obligation, and action.
4. A large project on a relational metaphysics of morals -- tying a relational constitutivist account of value and the ought to an account of freedom and action.
For the next while, I plan to develop further a relational primitivist view in four projects.
1. A book on dignity and rights commissioned by Cambridge University Press for the Elements in Philosophy of Law (due in mid-'23)
2. An exploration of the non-deontic relational normativity of love.
3. A series of papers on Kant's practical philosophy, exploring the extent to which reflection on Kant's dispositionalist metaphysics supports a relational reading of his account of basic normative phenomena -- like the nature of rights, obligation, and action.
4. A large project on a relational metaphysics of morals -- tying a relational constitutivist account of value and the ought to an account of freedom and action.
