Cory Davia is a Visiting Assistant Professor at Claremont McKenna College. He works in metaethics and philosophy of action, with a particular focus on the role of reflection in agency.
What excites you about philosophy?
The part of being a philosopher that I get the most joy out of is reading friends’ early drafts. I like trying to get in the spirit of the paper, figure out what kind of contribution it’s making and what motivates that contribution, then see what other cool stuff could be done with those resources. That’s when doing philosophy feels most like play to me, as contrasted with settings where it can feel more adversarial.
Two of the philosophers I know who are best at identifying what’s promising in others’ work are Kathleen Connelly and Robert Hamilton Wallace. I should add, too, that Amy Flowerree has some fun ideas for ways of facilitating these kinds of brainstorming conversations remotely, and I’m excited to help organize those kinds of events with her.
What is your favorite thing that you’ve written?
Each year, the grad students at UC San Diego vote on a philosopher to invite, then form a reading group around that philosopher’s work. Papers grow out of those reading group meetings, and those papers are presented at a conference alongside a talk from the invited speaker. In 2016, Peter Railton was the speaker, and Matt Braich organized the reading group around Railton’s series of papers arguing that the affective system is more flexible and more reasons-responsive than philosophers have typically given it credit for. One of Railton’s motivations in those papers is to cast doubt on the idea that conscious, deliberately reflective reasoning is the paradigm case of rational agency. I came into the reading group pretty skeptical about Railton’s conclusions, but kept finding myself convinced by what we read. So, I wrote “Reflection Without Regress” as a way of trying to make my intuitions about what’s special about reflection compatible with Railton’s observations about its limitations.
One reason I really like that paper is that the final version of the paper so closely reflects the conversations we had during the reading group and the conference. Some of the papers I cite in it are also ones that grew out of that reading group, and most of the argumentative moves were first tried out there. So, for me, it’s a cool snapshot of that time and what we did together.
Another thing I like about that paper is that the process of writing it resonates with the view it defends. One central claim in it is that reflection is distinctively useful for sharing commitments with other agents, and that seems fitting for a paper that developed the way this one did.
What are you working on right now?
I have a bunch of things in the works, but here are the three that are the farthest along. One is a follow-up paper to “Reflection Without Regress,” where I argue that if I’m right about what’s involved in agency, then my colleague Rima Basu is right about moral encroachment.
My dissertation defended a version of hybrid voluntarism about justifying reasons, the view that sometimes (but only sometimes) agents can give a consideration normative significance by willing that it be so. Part of my rationale for that view was that it can matter to us not just what we have reason to do, but why (metaphysically-speaking) we have those reasons. Aaron Chipp-Miller and I are exploring that idea together in a co-authored paper about the possibility that one can wrong someone by providing them with reasons in a way that changes the meaning of their actions.
Ruth Chang motivates hybrid voluntarism in part by thinking about cases where an agent’s reasons don’t conclusively settle what they ought to do. I’m working on a paper that uses an analogy with this idea to make progress on an issue in philosophy of sports: what should guide officials in situations that are not conclusively settled by the rules?
What are you most proud of in your professional life?
When I was a grad student, my colleagues Cami Koepke, Tanya Hall, and I started a reading group we called the “Pedagogy Brunch Series,” in which we’d meet for brunch a few times per quarter to read the scholarship of teaching and learning and compare notes about our teaching experiences. That group became an unofficial place for new TAs to ask questions, and led to the creation of a variety of other pedagogy workshops and collaborations with UCSD’s Center for Engaged Teaching. This turned out to fill a niche for the department: something more tailored to philosophers than the CET’s (really helpful) training for new instructors, and something more robust than what the department had offered before. I found that work very meaningful, and I’d like to contribute to creating that kind of space in my current department, or wherever I end up in the longer-term.
What do you like to do outside work?
If this question is about my hobbies, my answers are cooking, following baseball, and brewing beer. If this question is about what I actually spend most of my time doing outside of work, it’s talking with my partner about what goofy thing the cat is doing.
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.
