Romy Eskens
Overview
I am interested in a wide range of questions in normative ethics, social, and political philosophy, and moral psychology. I have a particularly strong interest in the ethics of mind, personal relationship norms, moral address and responsibility, equality and partiality, and harming and rescuing. Within these areas, I am currently working on three (interrelated) topics:
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(1) The possibility of purely mental wrongs.
(2) Defective evaluative stances as a ground of wronging.​
(3) Norms of weight-giving in interpersonal relations.
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Publications
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Articles
1. "Gratitude and Rights", Australasian Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming).
2. "Moral Gratitude", Journal of Applied Philosophy (early view).
3. "Expressive Duties Are Demandable and Enforceable", Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, vol. 14, edited by Mark Timmons, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024). (For a summary and discussion at New Work in Philosophy, see here.)
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4. "Reciprocity, Inequality, and Unsuccessful Rescues", Utilitas vol. 36, no. 1 (2024): 64-82
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5. “Other-Sacrificing Options: Reply to Lange”, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy, vol. 21, no. 2 (2022): 290-297.
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6. “Is Sex with Robots Rape?”, Journal of Practical Ethics, vol. 5, no.2 (2017): 62-76. (Winner of the 3rd Annual Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics.)
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Reviews
1. "George Sher: A Wild West of the Mind", Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, vol. 25, no. 5 (2022): 895-897.
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In progress
1. A paper on balancing norms (w/ Gunnar Björnsson)
2. A paper on discounting (w/ Gunnar Björnsson)
3. A paper on agent-regret and counterfactuals
4. A paper on the possibility of mental wronging
5. A paper on the wrong of degradation
6. A paper on gratitude-based partiality and war
7. A paper on morally offensive advice (w/ Jonas Haeg)
8. A paper on enemies and rivals (w/ Gunnar Björnsson), commissioned for publication in the Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Personal Relationships.
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Dissertation
Payback Time: Essays on Attitudes, Partiality, and Rescuing (Stockholm University, 2022)​
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Does the moral quality of someone’s past treatment of us, or of other people, change how we are morally permitted or required to treat them? Many philosophers think so. They argue, for instance, that someone’s supererogatory or impermissible behaviour can permit or require certain positive or negative attitudinal responses, such as gratitude or resentment. They also argue that someone’s impermissible behaviour can justify harming the person, either defensively or punitively, and that someone who is imperilled as a result of impermissible behaviour might have a weaker claim to be aided than those who are innocently imperilled. This thesis has two aims. The first is to extend the scope of the idea that we can be morally required to have certain positive or negative attitudinal responses to someone’s supererogatory or impermissible behaviour; the second is to explore novel ways in which our required responses to such behaviour, or our failures to have these responses, can change what others owe to us when aiding. In pursuing the two aims, the thesis brings together two philosophical domains that are not normally considered in conjunction: the philosophy of attitudes and deontological ethics.