I am a philosophy professor at Christopher Newport University. My main research areas include epistemology, philosophy of religion, and applied ethics. Previously an entrepreneur and research analyst, I now teach business ethics, medical ethics, and other philosophy courses, plus the Global Commerce and Culture capstone course.
Current Teaching
Research
Partiality We Owe Our Employers, Virtuous and Vicious Expressions of Partiality, Eric Silverman, ed. (2024)
Many employers make great efforts to be treated favorably by their employees, in part to avoid employee turnover and productivity losses. Phrased differently, employers are interested in being treated partially by their employees. This article’s project is to present three reasons that employees owe partiality to their employers. If employees do owe partiality to their employers, there are reasons for employees to be partial to their employer independent of their employer’s efforts. Further, an investigation into why and when employers ought to be partial to their employers will reveal conditions employers need to meet in order for employees to have reasons to owe partiality to their employers. If employers wish to make efforts to be treated partially by their employees, employers should heed those conditions.
An Argument for the Perspectival Account of Faith, Religious Studies 60:1 (2024)
Faith, I argue, is a value-oriented perspective, where the subject has a pro-attitude towards the object of the perspective. After summarizing the perspectival account of faith and its upshots that are relevant to the proceeding argument, I give an extended explanatory, cumulative case argument for the account by showing that the perspectival account of faith explains the data that alternative accounts of faith seek to explain, including why faith is present in paradigmatic cases of faith and the truth, or perceived truth, of various statements about faith. In addition, I argue that the perspectival account of faith explains the plausibility of alternative accounts of faith; each of the alternative accounts of faith focuses on a feature or consequence of faith, according to the perspectival account, which we would expect if other faith theorists seek but incorrectly identify the correct account of faith.
A Proposition is Epistemically Possible If and Only If Its Negation Is Not Obvious, Logos and Episteme 15:3 (2024)
According to a prominent account of epistemic possibility endorsed by John Hawthorne and Jason Stanley (“H-S Account”), a proposition q is epistemically possible for a subject just in case what the subject knows doesn’t obviously entail not-q. I argue that H-S Account is false by its own lights by first showing that H-S Account entails a different account of epistemic possibility—q is epistemically possible for a subject just in case not-q is not obvious to that subject (“Obvious Account”)—and then showing that H-S Account is false on the basis of Obvious Account. Obvious Account is good news for fallibilists. H-S Account is in tension with fallibilism, which requires that fallibilist adherents of H-S Account do extra work to relieve the tension. Obvious Account, however, does not require any of this work; it is straightforwardly compatible with fallibilism. Obvious Account also has implications for the truth of concessive knowledge attributions (CKAs)—statements of the form: ‘I know p, but possibly q’, where q obviously entails not-p. Obvious Account allows some CKAs to be true, whereas H-S Account does not.
Held Hostage: The Use of Noncompete Clauses to Exploit Workers and a Statutory Framework to Protect Them, Journal of Law, Business, and Ethics 29 (2023)
Noncompete agreements are among the most commonly used methods to restrict employment. Upwards of 38% of American workers, many of which are low-wage workers, have signed noncompete agreements. These agreements effectively hold those workers hostage to their current employer. This project analyzes the use of noncompete clauses in employment contracts with low-wage workers. We show that noncompetes with low-wage workers are not enforceable in the U.S.; employers nevertheless continue to include noncompete clauses in employment contracts with low-wage workers. We survey states’ attempts to regulate the use of (even unenforceable) noncompetes and argue that current legislation is ineffective at preventing employers from including noncompetes in low-wage worker contracts. We argue that employers’ use of (even unenforceable) noncompete agreements with low-wage workers is wrongfully exploitative of those workers, and we provide suggestions for how states can effectively regulate the use of noncompetes, and thus protect low-wage workers from exploitation, using Virginia’s recently passed noncompete bill as a model.
The Perspectival Account of Faith, Religious Studies 59:4 (2023)
This paper articulates and defends an underexplored account of faith—the perspectival account of faith—according to which faith is a value-oriented perspective on the world toward which the subject has a pro-attitude. After describing this account of faith and outlining what it is to have faith on the perspectival account, I show that the perspectival account meets methodological criteria for an account of faith. I then show that this account of faith can be used to unify various faith locutions: having faith that p (propositional faith), having faith in something (attitudinal faith), being a person of faith (global faith), articles of faith (creedal faith), and acts of faith (praxical faith). Finally, since the perspectival account of faith is a cognitive account of faith, I defend the perspectival view against objections to cognitive accounts of faith.
Absolute Identity and the Trinity, Religious Studies 59:1 (2023)
Trinititarians are charged with at least two contradictions. First, the Father is God and the Son is God, so it seems to follow that the Father is the Son. Trinitarians affirm the premises but deny the conclusion, which seems contradictory. Second, the Father is a God, the Son is a God, and the Holy Spirit is a God, but the Father is not the Son, the Father is not the Holy Spirit, and the Son is not the Holy Spirit. This argument seems to entail that there are three Gods. Again, Trinitarians affirm the premises but deny the conclusion. In this paper, I present a novel Trinitarian solution to these alleged contradictions. The proposal also allows one to maintain that the premises in the above arguments are absolute identity statements, forestalls the need to develop a new way of counting (e.g., by sortals or numerical sameness), and is compatible with divine simplicity.
In short, the proposal is that there are implicit opaque contexts in Trinitarian statements that prevent substitutivity salva veritate into those contexts. Given that the above arguments that allegedly generate contradictions for Trinitarian doctrine require substitution into those contexts, the arguments that generate the alleged contradictions are invalid. In the paper, I show that there is precedent for holding that implicit opaque contexts can be generated in a statement solely on the basis of the content of the statement, explain what it is about the content of Trinitarian statements that generates opaque contexts, show what kinds of valid inferences can be made using Trinitarian statements despite the presence of opaque contexts in those statements, and show that the proposal has metaphysical and historical support in the writings of Thomas Aquinas.
Chastity in the Workplace, Sexual Ethics in a Secular Age: Is There a Secular Virtue of Chastity?, Eric Silverman, ed. (2021)
Most businesses are aware of the costs associated with sexual harassment and are concerned about limiting its presence in the workplace. Although the business ethics literature contains work on sexual harassment, it has very little to say on chastity or its value in the workplace, even though unchaste behavior underlies the prevalence of sexual harassment. This article begins this investigation into chastity worth having in the workplace, taking typical company policies as a guide for what kind of chastity is worth having in the workplace in particular. The first question asked in this article is: for what reasons is chastity worth having in the workplace? I consider four answers—harm prevention, respect for employee consent/dissent, respect for others’ dignity, and conflict of interest avoidance—and I examine workplace policies that enforce chaste behavior in search for a unified and underlying reason for these policies. In the process of locating the primary reason for the value of being chaste in the workplace in particular, we will be given tools to develop an account of chastity worth having in the workplace, which I will argue is primarily cognitive, rather than volitional or affective. I conclude that chastity is the disposition not to construe a coworker as a satisfier of one’s sexual interest, and I argue that chastity is valuable in the workplace because it secures coworkers’ ability to have their contributions appropriately valued. The hope is that once the reason and locus of chastity is identified, the professionals who know how to train businesspeople in developing virtues will better be able to focus their attention and efforts.
Taking a New Perspective on Suffering and Death, A New Theist Response to the New Atheists, Kevin Vallier and Josh Rasmussen, eds. (2021)
There is a massive amount of severe suffering and death in the world, and much of this suffering and death is out of our control. The amount and severity of suffering and death in the world can be used to make an argument for (or elicit a reaction against) the existence of God: if God—an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-good being—exists, God would not allow such massive amounts of suffering and death. I'll propose a line of response that begins by exploring what would be involved in taking a new perspective on the suffering and death in the world. I then argue that there is no good reason not to take that new perspective. If this is correct, the argument from (or reaction to) suffering and death to the conclusion that God doesn't exist has lost much of its force; an argument that seems forceful from one perspective is weak from a different perspective that is just as reasonable, or more reasonable, to take.
Solving the Problem of Nearly Convergent Knowledge, Social Epistemology (2018)
The Problem of Nearly Convergent Knowledge is an updated and stronger version of the Problem of Convergent Knowledge, which presents a problem for the traditional, binary view of knowledge in which knowledge is a two-place relation between a subject and the known proposition. The problem supports Knowledge Contrastivism, the view that knowledge is a three-place relation between a subject, the known proposition, and a proposition that disjoins the alternatives relevant to what the subject knows. For example, if knowledge is contrastive, I do not simply know that the bird in front of me is a goldfinch; instead, I know that the bird in front of me is a goldfinch rather than a raven or eagle or falcon. There is, however, a binary view of knowledge that overcomes even the Problem of Nearly Convergent Knowledge. I will give this binary view, show that it is motivated by the same considerations that motivate Knowledge Contrastivism, and argue that it avoids problematic consequences for our epistemic lives that Knowledge Contrastivism cannot.
Defusing the Common Sense Problem of Evil, Faith and Philosophy (2015)
The inductive argument from evil to the non-existence of God contains the premise that, probably, there is gratuitous evil. Some skeptical theists object: one's justification for the premise that, probably, there is gratuitous evil involves an inference from the proposition that we don't see a good reason for some evil to the proposition that it appears that there is no good reason for that evil, and they use a principle, "CORNEA," to block that inference. The common sense problem of evil threatens the CORNEA move, because the common sense problem of evil does not involve any inference to justify the belief that there is gratuitous evil. In this paper, I argue that the common sense problem of evil doesn't avoid CORNEA. CORNEA, or a reformulated version of it, can still prevent one from having justification for the belief that there is gratuitous evil.
Religious Epistemology, Philosophy Compass (2015)
Religious epistemology is the study of how subjects' religious beliefs might have, or fail to have knowledge, justification, warrant, or rationality. The current debate is focused upon the kind of basis upon which a religious believer might rationally hold certain beliefs about God, e.g. whether God exists, what attributes God has, what God is doing. In this paper, we give a brief description and historical survey of three of the main positions in the debate: evidentialism, fideism, and reformed epistemology, and we then show that the aforementioned positions are compatible.
Splitting the Horns of Euthyphro's Modal Relative, Faith and Philosophy (2013)
Are necessary truths true because God affirms them, or does God affirm them because they're true? If you accept the first, necessary truths are as contingent as God's free will. If you accept the second, God is less ultimate than the modal ontology that establishes certain truths as necessary. If you go for a third option by affirming that necessary truths are somehow grounded in God's nature, Brian Leftow meets you with an argument. I argue that Leftow's argument fails and that, contrary to his argument, there is a good reason to believe that necessary truths are grounded in God's nature.
Review of Autonomous Knowledge, J. Adam Carter, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2022)
In Autonomous Knowledge, J. Adam Carter argues that knowledge requires autonomy that would be prevented were humans enhanced by artificial intelligence. I describe the argument, issue challenges, and propose new avenues for exploration in the area of artificial intelligence and human autonomy.
Review of Debating Christian Religious Epistemology, Tyler McNabb, Faith and Philosophy (2021)
In Debating Christian Religious Epistemology contains chapter length expositions from proponents of five different views of religious epistemology, which is the study of whether and how subjects’ religious beliefs can have a positive epistemic status (such as knowledge, justification, warrant, or rationality). The five views proposed are 1) Phenomenal Conservativism, 2) Classical Evidentialism, 3) Proper Functionalism, 4) Covenental Epistemology, and 5) Tradition-Based Perspectivalism. In this review, I summarize and analyze each view and their relationship to one another.
Review of Faith and Humility, Jonathan Kvanvig, Faith and Philosophy (2019)
In Faith and Humility, Jonathan Kvanvig argues for an account of two virtues that balance, or provide correction for, the other: faith and humility. Faith is the disposition to act in service of an ideal, a disposition that remains despite difficulties or setbacks. One can, however, pursue distorted ideals or pursue them in the wrong way—with unquestioning zeal, for example. Humility, which helps to correct this extreme, is the disposition to attend to the value of one’s aims and the extent of one’s contribution toward accomplishing them. To establish these accounts, Kvanvig first argues for a method that directs his arguments, and he then develops the accounts as he articulates and responds to alternative views. In what follows, instead of summarizing the book chapter by chapter, I provide a summary of Kvanvig’s positions and his arguments for them as they are eventually developed throughout the book.
Review of Systematic Atheology: Atheism's Reasoning with Theology, John Shook, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews (2018)
John Shook’s Systematic Atheology, “composed mainly for the edification of atheism’s defenders,” (p. 37) is an attempt to understand and defend atheism in an organized way. The book is divided into three sections. The first is the attempt to define ‘atheist’, ‘atheology’, and their relationship by tracking historical uses of the terms. The second is an extensive history of atheistic and atheological western philosophers, and the third, which occupies the last half of the book, is the attempt to systematically undermine every kind of argument for the existence of a god. In this review, I state the strengths and weaknesses of the book, summarize its main points, and provide reasons to think that the atheological project in the last half of the book fails.
Review of On Reflection, Hilary Kornblith, Journal of Moral Philosophy (2015)
Hilary Kornblith argues that reflection is not more valuable than unreflective processes, because reflection is not different in kind from unreflective processes. Reflection, then, has no special role in whether we know, are reasonable, are able to exercise free will, or are able to act as we should. I summarize Kornblith’s arguments and provide a reason to think that Kornblith’s arguments fail; if the arguments are successful, they give us reason to believe that reflection is more valuable than his arguments indicate.
The Connected Car Experience: Software, Apps, and Services, Parks Associates (2017)
This report examines the connected car software developer sector to highlight innovations and new consumer experiences that will come to car models in the next year. It hones in on software and apps that can be built on top of a car's embedded operating system and concludes with a five-year forecast of connected car sales in the U.S.
Disruptions from Sharing Economy Apps, Parks Associates (2016)
The sharing economy describes new business models built on the proliferation of smartphone and app use and the shared resources from these device owners. These business models are characterized by real-time data and location, on-demand pricing, and easy payment. This report examines these models' success factors and the extent of their disruption in five industry sectors, and it concludes with the next a prediction of the next five sectors to see disruptive business models from the sharing economy.
App Strategies for the Connected Car Industry, Parks Associates (2016)
In-vehicle connectivity has made cars the next great apps platform, but vehicles are distinct from other devices due to safety concerns, product development timelines, and product ownership models. This report addresses issues facing the connected car app ecosystem, provides insight on consumer perspectives on connected car apps, and assesses four connected vehicle app strategies.
Leading Smart Watch Apps: Insights into Wearable Use Cases, Parks Associates (2016)
This report analyzes trends in the development of tethered and native apps for smart watches. It highlights perspectives from watch brands, app developers, and consumers about the most significant smart watch use cases and business strategies to increase usage and boost brand loyalty. It concludes with a five-year global smart watch sales forecast.
Reassessing Mobile Payments: A Duopoly or Oligopoly?, Parks Associates (2016)
This report analyzes market competition in the mobile payment industry, focusing on business strategies of payment platforms developers, including Apple Pay, Android Pay, PayPal, and emerging solution providers. It also examines external factors that shape market adoption trajectory, including merchants' adoption of EMV standards, e-commerce growth, and payment network providers' business strategies. It concludes with a five-year forecast of U.S. mobile payment users and mobile payment transaction values.