The paper attempts to bridge a gap between two prevalent conceptions of forgiveness that are widely thought to be in opposition. On one side of things, forgiveness is often characterized as a gift. The image is an ever-present one, enduring in popular culture no less than in the sober prose of analytic philosophy. But we also talk of forgiveness as a moral imperative, an important, even vital aspect of our moral life. I argue that, contrary to what may at first (...) appear, the two sides are not in tension, and each gets at something important about the nature of forgiveness. Forgiveness is indeed a gift but, much like actual gifts, it is one we are sometimes required to give. (shrink)

Many people appear to attach great value to sad music. But why? One way to gain insight into this question is to turn away from music and look instead at why people value sad conversations. In the case of conversations, the answer seems to be that expressing sadness creates a sense of genuine connection. We propose that sad music can also have this type of value. Listening to a sad song can give one a sense of genuine connection. We then (...) explore the nature of this value in two experimental studies. The results suggest a striking relationship between music and conversation. People see something distinctively musical in works that express precisely those emotions that they think most create connection within conversation. (shrink)

Moral obligation, according to one influential conception, is distinct among other moral concepts in at least two respects. First, obligation is linked with demands. If I am obligated to you to do X, then you can demand that I do X. Second, obligation is linked with blame and the rest of our accountability practices. If I am obligated to you to do X, failure to do so is blameworthy and you may hold me accountable for it. The puzzle is the (...) following: when it comes to our attitudes, in particular to our emotional responses, these two components seem to come apart. We do not appear to demand that others feel a given emotion. And yet, we do blame others (and ourselves) for feeling them. The challenge I take on in this paper is to sort out the moral status of emotions given these facts. (shrink)

The purpose of this paper is to reject what I call the entitlement model of directed obligation: the view that we can conclude from X is obligated to Y that therefore Y has an entitlement against X. I argue that rejecting the model clears up many otherwise puzzling aspects of ordinary moral interaction. The main goal is not to offer a new theory of obligation and entitlement. It is rather to show that, contrary to what most philosophers have assumed, directed (...) obligation and entitlement are not the same normative concept seen from two different perspectives. They are two very different concepts, and much is gained by keeping them distinct. (shrink)

Contemporary accounts of luck, though differing in pretty much everything, all agree that the concept of luck is descriptive as opposed to normative. This widespread agreement forms part of the framework in which debates in ethics and epistemology, where the concept of luck plays a central role, are carried out. The hypothesis put forward in the present paper is that luck attributions are sensitive to normative considerations. I report five experiments suggesting that luck attributions are influenced by the normative features (...) of the case, and not merely by descriptive notions like agential control or modal fragility. I discuss the implications of this effect for theories of luck and debates in ethics and epistemology. (shrink)