Assistant Professor of Philosophy
Miles Tucker
Research
I specialize in ethics and metaethics. I am especially interested in consequentialism, non-naturalism, and the concept of intrinsic value.
Publications
Avoiding Moral Commitment. Journal of the American Philosophical Association (forthcoming)
I argue that relaxed moral realists are not ontologically committed to moral properties. This permits a nominalist form of relaxed realism that is both simpler and more ecumenical than extant formulations.
States of Affairs and Our Connection with the Good. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research (2024)
Abstractionists claim that the only bearers of intrinsic value are abstract, necessarily existing states of affairs. But though we can model concrete goods such as lives, projects, and outcomes with abstract states, conflating models of goods with the goods themselves has surprising and unattractive consequences. I suggest that concrete states of affairs or facts are the only bearers of intrinsic value.
Consequentialism and Our Best Selves. Philosophical Studies (2022)
I claim that consequentialists should recommend only those desires, emotions, and dispositions that will make the outcome best. I advance a conservative account of the motives that are possible for us; I say that a motive is an alternative if and only if it is in our psychological control. The resulting theory is less demanding than its competitors.
Moore, Brentano, and Scanlon: A Defense of Indefinability. Philosophical Studies (2020)
Mooreans claim that intrinsic goodness is a conceptual primitive. Fitting-attitude theorists object: they say that goodness should be defined in terms of what it is fitting for us to value. I dedicate myself to the influential arguments marshaled against Moore’s program, including those advanced by Scanlon, Stratton-Lake and Hooker, and Jacobson; I argue that they do not succeed.
From an Axiological Standpoint. Ratio (2019)
I examine extant accounts of the nature of final value. In each case, I argue that the concept of final value described is either identical with the classical notion of intrinsic value or is not a plausible candidate for the primary concept of axiology.
Simply Good: A Defense of the Principia. Utilitas (2018)
Moore's moral program is increasingly unpopular. Judith Jarvis Thomson's attack has been influential; she says the Moorean project fails because ‘there is no such thing as goodness’. I argue that her objection fails.
The Pen, the Dress and the Coat: A Confusion in Goodness. Philosophical Studies (2016)
Conditionalists say that the value something has as an end—its final value—may be conditional on its extrinsic features. I attend to the three most popular examples given to support the conditional position; I argue that they do not succeed. I suggest that many philosophers have conflated final value with sentimental value.
Two Kinds of Value Pluralism. Utilitas (2016)
I claim that there are two distinct views called ‘value pluralism’ in contemporary axiology, but that these positions have not been properly stated or distinguished. I separate and elucidate these views, and show how the distinction between them affects the contemporary debate about value pluralism.
Education
University of Massachusetts Amherst
Ph.D. Philosophy (2017)
Dissertation: "The Concept of Intrinsic Goodness: Essays in Moorean Moral Philosophy"
Director: Fred Feldman.
EmploymenT
Virginia Commonwealth University
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
2019-Present
Starke House, #304
915 W. Franklin St.
Richmond, VA 23284