JULES SALOMONE-SEHR
PUBLICATIONS
Journal articles
“Sorry, Not Sorry?,” forthcoming. Oxford Studies in Agency and Responsibility.
Fitting apologies, it would seem, must involve an admission of blameworthiness. This, however, is hard to square with the fact that we often apologize for blameless conduct. In this paper, I solve the resulting puzzle by arguing that, in cases where our agency ends up blamelessly implicated in harm, apologies are fitting only if they involve a truthful admission of responsibility—where the responsibility in question does not entail blameworthiness.
“How to Be Minimalist About Shared Agency,” 2024. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 109 (1): 155-178.
What is involved in sharing one’s agency with others? Most shared agency theorists claim that acting together requires shared intentions. This paper dissents from this orthodoxy and offers a minimalist account of shared agency—one where parties to shared activities need not form rich webs of interrelated psychological states.
“Shared Agency and Mutual Obligations: A Pluralist Account,” 2023. The Philosophical Quarterly 73 (4): 1120–1140.
Do participants in shared activities owe to one another to do their part in their common plan? In this paper, I argue that there is no one-size-fits-all answer to this question, and I offer, accordingly, a pluralist account of the normativity of shared agency.
“Cooperation: With or Without Shared Intentions,” 2022. Ethics 132 (2): 414-444.
In this paper, I refute an orthodoxy of shared agency theory, namely the view that shared intentions to φ are necessary and sufficient for φ to count as an instance of cooperation. I then take stock and articulate the everyday conception of cooperation that this refutation implies.
Invited Contributions
“Four Routes to Minimalism About Shared Agency,” forthcoming. Washington University Review of Philosophy.
Most shared agency theorists believe that acting together is a matter of forming and enacting shared intentions. Not all agree, however. A growing number of dissenters have gone minimalist about shared agency by arguing that acting together requires a lot less practical alignment between participants than dominant accounts suggest. In this paper, I survey recent minimalist accounts of shared agency and explain four reasons why such minimalism is attractive.
“Emotions and (Allegedly) Arational Actions,” forthcoming. Les Ateliers de l'éthique/The Ethics Forum.
This short piece discusses Christine Tappolet's treatment of so-called arational actions in her Philosophy of Emotions (Routledge, 2022). Brought to philosophical attention by Rosalind Hursthouse, arational actions are actions done simply because we are in the grip of some emotion or other (as when we leap up to reach for leaves out of joy). In this piece, I argue, pace Hursthouse, that certainly many instances of so-called arational actions are in fact rational.
“Collective Intentions” (with Matthew Rachar), 2023. In M.N.S. Sellers and Stephan Kirste (eds.), Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, Springer.
This entry surveys major accounts of collective intentions.
“Que doivent faire les blancs ?” (“What Should White People Do?”), 2022. In Juliette Galonnier, Daniel Sabbagh, and Patrick Simon (eds.), “Qualifier le racisme : controverses et reconnaissance du fait racial,” special issue, Mouvements, La Découverte.
In our racially unjust societies, what should white people do? In this paper, I survey answers to this question that recent work in ethics, social epistemology, and philosophy of race suggests.
“Agency and Practical Reasoning” (with Jennifer M. Morton), 2022. In Luca Ferrero (ed.), Handbook in the Philosophy of Agency, Routledge.
Unlike other ways of coming to act, for example as a result of habit or impulse, practical reasoning imprints our actions with the distinctive mark of rational full-blooded agency. This entry inquires into what practical reasoning consists in.
“Présentation. L’empirisme rationaliste de Durkheim et Mauss,” 2017. Introduction to Émile Durkheim et Marcel Mauss, De quelques formes primitives de classification, Presses Universitaires de France.
In this introduction, I flesh out Durkheim and Mauss’s account of the acquisition of the concept of class, and I argue that their account steers a middle course between traditional strands of rationalism and empiricism.
UNDER REVIEW
Drafts available upon request
A paper about non-ideal agency (with Matthew Rachar, revise and resubmit)
This paper argues that when faced with a hard decision, we can and sometimes should decide decision-making away by (e.g.) flipping a coin. At first, deciding decision-making away might look suspect: it might seem that conforming with the verdict of a coin flip and φ-ing as a result involves making the decision to φ. To address this worry, we inquire into the psychological structures that make deciding decision-making away possible. We close by examining when (if at all) we should decide decision-making away.
Another paper about non-ideal agency
I describe a mechanism that enables us to get ourselves to do something while not intending to do it. Detached agency, as I call this mechanism, involves coming up with a plan designed to φ and intending the enactment of that plan, while not intending to φ. Although paradoxical at first, detached agency neither collapses into ordinary intentional agency, nor conflicts with practical rationality.
A paper about cooperativeness
This paper focuses on cooperativeness, i.e. the deep and stable disposition to think and act as a good partner in shared activity. Therein, I explain what cooperativeness is by inquiring into the job that possession of the concept of cooperativeness might do for us.
A paper about complicity
I develop a minimalist account of complicity, one on which complicity is, roughly, a matter of participating, along with others, in the enactment of a wrongful plan of action. One important reason why this account is minimalist is because it does not require that the accomplice’s mental states register the fact of their participation in wrongdoing. Accordingly, my account is well suited to capture the wide distribution of complicitous responsibility in our densely interconnected and structurally unjust social world.
A paper about epistemic injustices targeting knowledge-how (with Camille Ternier)
Epistemic injustice theorists have predominantly focused on the injustices that insult our capacity for knowledge of facts. In this paper, we turn to knowledge-how and describe the injustice one suffers when unduly preempted from employing one's knowledge-how—an injustice to which workers are particularly vulnerable.