Avi Appel was born in Princeton, NJ, completed a BA in Philosophy at UW – Madison in 2009, an MS in Accounting at Boston College in 2010, spent four years doing spreadsheets for a large commercial cleaning company in NoVa, and began working on a PhD in philosophy at Cornell University in 2014. It seems that every time Avi is about to earn a degree in philosophy, the U.S. enters a major recession. You can view Avi’s CV here.
What are you working on right now?
Right now, I’m working on answering all these interview questions. In the near future, I hope to be working on a response to Adam Lerner and Sarah-Jane Leslie’s paper “Generics, Generalism, and Reflective Equilibrium.” Lerner and Leslie argue that we should trust intuitions about specific cases more than intuitions about general moral rules (such as “If it is in our power to prevent something bad from happening, without thereby sacrificing anything of comparable moral importance, we ought, morally, to do it”) because only the latter is subject to the generic overgeneralization effect. What I aim to show is that the former is equally subject to the generic overgeneralization effect.
Which books have changed your life? In what ways?
When I was in middle school, I was visiting my grandparents for a week and, out of boredom, started browsing their bookshelves. I selected a book that, from the title, sounded like it would be an introduction to religion. That topic interested me; religion was kind of exotic from my perspective, since my entire family was atheist. I loved the book so much that, four years later, I started college with an intention to major in religious studies. It wasn’t until I took Introduction to Philosophy that I learned that David Hume’s Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion was squarely in philosophy (and nothing like it would be covered in any religious studies classes).
What are you reading right now? Would you recommend it?
I’m about four months behind on my New Yorkers. I recommend it. Maybe in another four months I’ll learn why I’ve been instructed to teach from home for the rest of the semester.
Where would you go in a time machine?
I’m sure I would do something as moral as possible, but spelling that out would be rather boring and, therefore, not a morally optimal use of this question.
Here’s a more (self-)interesting answer. First, I would travel back in time a few seconds to make sure that there were two of me. I would tell past-Avi the details of the following plan: I travel forward in time a century, look up my obituary, then travel back to just before that date. I have a conversation with past-Avi (who is now future-Avi), allowing him to share and persuade me of a sufficient amount of his desires and beliefs to count as a psychological continuer of him (I assume I will share a sufficient amount of the other stuff that matters, such as personality traits, etc.). Then, when he dies the next day, I can take over his life where he left off. Since psychological continuation is what really matters for survival (see Derek Parfit, Reasons and Persons 1984), I will thereby survive for quite a big longer than I would have otherwise.
This section of the APA Blog is designed to get to know our fellow philosophers a little better. We’re including profiles of APA members that spotlight what captures their interest not only inside the office, but also outside of it. We’d love for you to be a part of it, so please contact us via the interview nomination form here to nominate yourself or a friend.
Dr. Sabrina D. MisirHiralall is an editor at the Blog of the APA who currently teaches philosophy, religion, and education courses solely online for Montclair State University, Three Rivers Community College, and St. John’s University.
