Papers:
Note: Feel free to e-mail me if you'd like to access any of the drafts linked on this page!
Forthcoming:
"Was Marx a Republican?"* Forthcoming in NOMOS: Capitalism and Socialism. [Draft]
Recipient of the 2025 NOMOS (the American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy) Guest Student Scholar award
Abstract: A recent, influential reading of Marx argues that we should consider him to be a member of the republican tradition. Proponents of this reading claim that Marx subscribed to the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination. The first aim of this paper is to argue against this widespread view, particularly by showing that it obscures core features of Marx’s thought about freedom. Rather than focusing on the domination of some human beings by others, as republican accounts do, Marx’s discussions of freedom often concern the question of how freedom is possible for living beings, who must struggle with their natural environment in order to survive. Marx argues that freedom requires that human beings gain collective control over our environment, so that we that we can develop valuable human capacities after meeting our basic needs. In light of this fact, the second aim of this paper is to argue that Marx’s conception of freedom raises a significant challenge for the republican tradition. Some republicans claim that socialists ought to accept the republican ideal of freedom because it provides the most comprehensive account of capitalism’s threat to economic liberties. However, Marx’s conception of freedom appears well-positioned to capture social ills for which the republican tradition may fail to account.
Under review:
“Marx’s Ethical Critique of Exploitation" [Draft]
Abstract: In the contemporary literature, it is often assumed that Marx’s critique of exploitation is what the philosopher Rahel Jaeggi terms justice-oriented. That is, it is assumed Marx believes that the capitalist mode of production is inherently exploitative and that exploitation is objectionable because it is unjust. However, I argue that Marx also has an ethical critique of exploitation that is not treated by those who merely focus on this phenomenon’s injustice. According to Marx, a good human life is one in which individuals develop valuable human capacities, and such development requires as a necessary but not sufficient condition the possession of free time. Further, Marx claims that exploitation deprives individuals of such free time and so prevents them from living fully good lives. This feature of his account of exploitation is of significant historical interest: it enables us to defend the unity of Marx’s concepts of exploitation and alienation as well as argue that his mature critique of capitalism is more thoroughly grounded in his commitments about human nature than interpreters often suppose. It is also of normative interest: Marx’s ethical critique promises to contribute valuable normative resources to the contemporary assessment of capitalism, particularly by identifying an ethically bad feature of this economic system that often goes undiscussed, namely that it intrinsically perpetuates certain forms of temporal harm.
In preparation for submission:
"Freedom and Politics in Marx's Vision of Socialism" [Draft]
Abstract: What form of freedom did Marx believe that socialists or communists should work to achieve? One natural answer to this question is what Marx calls “true” or “real” freedom: namely, the development of human capacities for its own sake. However, some have recently argued that such freedom lacks an important role in Marx’s political thought. According to these interpreters, while Marx personally held an ideal of true freedom, he thought socialists should “fight for or establish” a society characterized by freedom from domination. In this paper, my primary aim is to argue against this prominent interpretive thesis. In fact, I will claim, Marx viewed true freedom as a fundamental value underlying socialist politics, one that ought to motivate workers’ struggle to overcome class society and create a new form of social life in its place. In this, Marx work raises an important challenge for those writing about socialist politics today. If Marx is right, then socialists ought to be as committed to true freedom as they are to freedom from domination, if not even more so.
"Marx's Radical Account of Free Time"
Abstract: Insofar as Marx’s account of the value of free time is discussed in the literature, it tends to be interpreted in two ways. Subjectivist interpreters claim that Marx believes free time is valuable because it is a necessary condition for our performance of actions we value as ends in themselves. Neo-Aristotelian interpreters, by contrast, claim that Marx believes such time is a necessary condition for our achievement of the chief human good, artistic and scientific pursuits. In this paper, I argue for an alternative to both, which I call the radical interpretation. Against subjectivists, I argue that Marx’s account is “radical,” in his idiosyncratic usage of this term, because it is rooted in his substantive commitments about human nature. According to Marx’s conception, free time is good for us because it is a necessary condition for the development of certain valuable human capacities as ends rather than as mere means. Against neo-Aristotelians, however, I argue that Marx views such capacities as open-ended and incapable of being specified in advance. In his picture, because human beings intervene in our life activity in self-conscious and purposive ways, human capacities will tend to become richer and more varied over time, in a manner even the most well-positioned observer would be unable to predict.
Early stages:
"What Enables Capitalist Domination? Marx, Domination, and the Capitalist Class"
"The Relationship Between Self-Determination and Self-Realization in Socialist Political Thought"
"The Unity of Marx's Thought About Freedom"
"Forced Reproductive Labor"
Dissertation:
Freedom and Free Time in the Thought of Karl Marx
Supervision: Daniel Brudney (chair), Anton Ford, Brian Leiter, Martha C. Nussbaum
Abstract: One of the fundamental reasons socialists condemn capitalism is that they believe this economic system makes people unfree. But how should socialists conceive of freedom? Drawing from Marx, increasingly many philosophers and political theorists argue that socialists should conceive of freedom as non-domination, or the absence of subjection to an arbitrary or uncontrolled will. However, in my dissertation, I argue that this popular view is too simple. In Marx’s work, I claim, we find a compelling argument for the importance of another ideal of freedom to socialist politics: namely, what Marx calls freedom as “spontaneous activity” (Selbsttätigkeit), or the development of human capacities for its own sake. Against others in the literature, I claim that this notion of freedom is central to Marx’s account of exploitation. According to Marx, exploitation limits our freedom in part because it compels us to spend our potential free time producing profits, instead of developing our capacities in an open-ended way. In this, I argue, Marx's account offers a more complete story about why capitalism makes us unfree. If Marx is right, then we are not just dominated under capitalism; we are also unfree because this economic system limits our free time.