Journal of Value Inquiry. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-023-09941-w There is little more common in ethics than to think pain is intrinsically bad and pleasure is intrinsically good. A Humean-style error theory of the value of pain and pleasure is developed against these commonsense claims. We defend the thesis that the value of pain and pleasure is always contingent and only instrumental. We survey prominent theories of both intrinsic value and pain/pleasure, all of which assume that pain and pleasure are intrinsically valuable. We base our error theory on counterexamples to this assumption, upon which these theories falter, and a theory of pain and pleasure which derives their value solely from their evolutionary function.

Teaching Ethics,22(2): 201-217. https://doi.org/10.5840/tej202322123 A perennial topic in introductory ethics classes, abortion has offered students a real-life issue to critically analyze. In this paper, I argue a popular approach to teaching abortion in such classes fails to attend to relevant political contexts of the issue and that this contributes to harms against pregnant people. I will argue for these conclusions by identifying three related problems with such an approach: these lessons frame a political issue as apolitical, value impartiality over lived experiences in moral assessment, and objectify the already-objectified group of pregnant people in the course of debating about them. I will then point to considerations that may help counter the harms caused by this approach and informed by these problems. These involve framing abortion lessons in terms of the relevant political and historical context of abortion and incorporating first-person accounts that engage with the embodied, lived experiences of abortion.

Social Philosophy Today. Online First Articles: https://doi.org/10.5840/socphiltoday202271293 I argue that communities have a moral responsibility to repair and prevent moral damage that some survivors of domestic violence may experience. This responsibility is grounded in those communities' complicity in domestic violence and the moral damage that may result. Drawing on Claudia Card's work on domestic violence, I first explain two forms of moral damage that some survivors may experience. These are: 1) normative isolation, or abusive environments that are marked by distorted moral standards about the abuse itself, and 2) coerced self-betrayal, the coercive entrapment of the survivor's agency, emotions, and beliefs to express the will of the abuser. Though the abuser is always the primary cause of abuse, I argue that survivors' communities can contribute to a climate that facilitates domestic violence by, for instance, sustaining harmful norms about gender roles, shaming survivors, protecting abusers, and not wanting to interrupt “private matters.” When this complicity exists, I argue that communities have a moral responsibility to create structures that repair and prevent moral damage from domestic violence. Finally, I sketch out some practical considerations for building these structures. These involve creating violence-resistant communities that protect survivors, hold abusers accountable, and help survivors reclaim their agencies.

Ergo an Open Access Journal of Philosophy 7. doi: https://doi.org/10.3998/ergo.1116 A common question in moral philosophy concerns how we should regard traumatic histories that have influenced wrongdoing. In this paper, I argue that one standard line of response—survivors are exempt from blame for a given wrongdoing because of a traumatic history that influenced this wrongdoing—is problematic. Instead of trying to determine how trauma categorically exempts survivors from blame, I argue that we should start from the fact that survivors are members of the moral community who can be as blameworthy as anyone, and then ask how considerations of trauma might impact a moral response to their wrongdoing. I consider and reject three attempts to exempt survivors on the grounds of traumatic histories, arguing that each risks divesting survivors of moral agency. I then develop an account of compassionate blame, a unique attitude in which we can blame the survivor for their wrong while also taking compassion towards the survivor in light of their traumatic history, and argue that this is the appropriate moral attitude to cultivate in these cases.

Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 26(4): 295-313 In this paper, I assess one dimension of self-injury through a framework of psychological oppression. Certain effects of psychological oppression, I argue, share a surprising degree of overlap with subjective features of self-injury, and may thereby partly explain socially marginalized agents' high risk of self-injury. I first discuss certain subjective features of self-injury that are particularly salient in agents' self-reports. I then canvass some of the literature on the risk of self-injury among members of socially marginalized groups. Focusing on one socio-cultural analysis of self-injury as a start, I discuss Sarah Naomi Shaw's (2002) feminist analysis of self-injury. I argue that while Shaw's analysis pays important attention to certain features of self-injury, its reliance on white feminine socialization, and body and beauty norms in particular, is overly restrictive. Finally, using Sandra Bartky's (1990) conception of psychological oppression, I focus on three features of psychological oppression and their connections to self-injury: 1) self-loathing and intra-self fragmentation; 2) bodily objectification; and 3) shame over acting out one's agency.

◦ LaGuardia-LoBianco, A. 2019. "Self-Saboteurs and Ethical Relationships." Social Theory and Practice 45(2): 249-285 Common sense morality tells us we should help our friends, family, and loved ones when they suffer. However, some people are hell-bent on being unhappy, and will do everything in their power to ensure their own suffering. This creates a dilemma about what we ought to do for someone who puts themselves in pain and refuses to budge. In this paper, I discuss mechanisms of and motivations for self-sabotaging behavior. I then turn to the ethical complications of these cases, focusing on the risk of becoming complicit in another's self-sabotage, the acceptable limits of caring for a self-saboteur, and the permissibility of paternalistic interference. I argue that while there is some degree of leeway we can permissibly give to meet another's needs—including submitting to their low-stakes manipulation—doing so poses the risk of damaging the relationship. While interference in another's self-sabotage for his own good may seem justified, I argue that this approach is also a morally problematic denial of the self-saboteur's agency. Instead, I offer an alternative route between complicity and interference: carers ought to try to maintain a genuine relationship build on the honest recognition of each other's reasons. This will mean the carer should talk to the self-saboteur about her own concerns and the strain the self-sabotage puts on the relationship while also appreciating that the self-saboteur may have legitimate reasons to suffer in an effort to find a resolution that both parties can accept.

◦ LaGuardia-LoBianco, A. 2018. “Complicit Suffering and the Duty to Self-Care.” Philosophy, 93(2): 251-277 Moral questions surrounding suffering tend to focus on obligations to relieve others' suffering. In this paper, I focus on the overlooked question of what sufferers morally owe to themselves, arguing that they have the duty to self-care. I discuss agents who have been shaped by moral luck to contribute to their own suffering and canvass the ways in which this damages moral agency. I contend that these agents have a duty to care for themselves by protecting and expanding their agency, which involves precluding further destruction of agency and ensuring the continued ability to self-care.