Jake Wojtowicz
My PhD dissertation offers an in-depth study of agent-regret, the theory of action that underpins it, and its role in our lives. If you're interested in hearing more or reading a copy, feel free to get in touch.
I wrote my PhD at King's College, London, supervised by David Owens and Massimo Renzo, and examined in September 2019 by Antony Duff and Ulrike Heuer. In the Autumn of 2016, I visited Cornell. I live in Rochester, NY.
I'm also interested in parts of the philosophy of law (especially John Gardner's work on reasons), ethics more broadly, the history of ethics (especially the British Moralists), the philosophy of sport, and epistemology.
Supervisors: David Owens and Massimo Renzo
Phone: (+1) 585-300-1455
I wrote my PhD at King's College, London, supervised by David Owens and Massimo Renzo, and examined in September 2019 by Antony Duff and Ulrike Heuer. In the Autumn of 2016, I visited Cornell. I live in Rochester, NY.
I'm also interested in parts of the philosophy of law (especially John Gardner's work on reasons), ethics more broadly, the history of ethics (especially the British Moralists), the philosophy of sport, and epistemology.
Supervisors: David Owens and Massimo Renzo
Phone: (+1) 585-300-1455
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Papers by Jake Wojtowicz
The first aim of this paper is to provide an account of the nature of sportswashing, as a practice of using an association with sport, usually through hosting an event or owning a club (such as Newcastle United, owned by Saudi Arabia), to subvert the way that others attend to a moral violation for which the sportswashing agent is responsible. This may be done through distracting away from wrongdoing, minimising it, or normalising it.
Second, we offer an account of the distinctive wrongs of sportswashing. The gravest moral wrong is the background injustice which sportswashing threatens to perpetuate. But the distinctive wrongs of sportswashing are twofold: first, it makes participants in sport (athletes, coaches, journalists, fans) complicit in the sportswasher’s wrongdoing, which extends a moral challenge to millions of people involved with sport. Second, sportswashing corrupts valuable heritage associated with sporting traditions and institutions.
Finally, we examine how sportswashing ought to be resisted. The appropriate forms of resistance will depend upon different roles people fill, such as athlete, coach, journalist, fan. The basic dichotomy of resistance strategies is to either exit the condition of complicity, for example by refusing to participate in the sporting event, or to modify one’s engagement with the goal of transformation in mind. We recognize this is difficult and potentially burdensome: sports are an important part of many of our lives; our approach attempts to respect this.
In the first part, I explore the nature of agent-regret. Agent-regret is distinct from guilt because we can feel agent-regret without being at fault. I argue that several challenges that seek to reduce agent-regret to a form of guilt fail. I further argue that agent-regret takes as its object not only something one has done, but the fact that one did it; I discuss this in terms of what Bernard Williams called taking an “external” view on one’s own action.
I suggest that we can best understand the object of agent-regret as one’s responsibility for an outcome. I argue that this form of “responsibility” is conceptually separate from liability or answerability; it concerns whether the outcome can be ascribed to an agent. This is a restricted form of causal responsibility but retains its agential character. I suggest that we can be responsible for outcomes even when we did not intend to bring them about.
In the second part, I vindicate the propriety of agent-regret against the ideas that we are not responsible for unintended outcomes or that such responsibility is not important. I set out several challenges to this effect. I argue that we are responsible for unintended outcomes because in order to be responsible as agents at all, we must use fallible abilities. When we exercise these abilities but fail, we are responsible as agents for those unintended outcomes that arise. I then consider the importance of being responsible for particular unintended outcomes and analyse the idea that this affects our identities. I argue that responsibility for an outcome affects a form of identity, but that it does not involve essential features of a person. Instead, our responsibility for outcomes is a contingent feature that nonetheless plays an important role in our interpersonal interactions and self-conceptions. I argue that these reactions are appropriate, because our responsibility for particular outcomes is independently significant—but these reactions also lend this responsibility added significance as part of inescapable human practices.
Thus our responsibility for outcomes is important. Its importance means that it can serve as an appropriate object of agent-regret that vindicates the propriety of agent-regret. I end by considering several interesting features of agent-regret, including its expression and “pure” cases, which are cases where an agent feels agent-regret despite not regretting the result of her action.
I explore what Bernard Williams means by regarding one’s action “purely externally, as one might regard anyone else’s action”, and how it links to regret and agent-regret. I suggest some ways that we might understand the external view: as a failure to recognise what one has done, in terms of Williams’s distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic luck, and as akin to Thomas Nagel’s distinction between an internal and external view. I argue that none of these captures what Williams was getting at, because they do not allow one to take a view on one’s action. I offer two alternative accounts. One turns around what we identify with, the other concerns what we care about. Both accounts capture how I might regret, rather than agent-regret, my own action. I demonstrate that these can explain the relationship between an insurance payout and the external view, and explain the agent-relativity of agent-regret.
Crispin Sartwell, rather than treading the standard post-Gettier path and adding new conditions to the JTB conception of knowledge, removes one: he thinks that knowledge is mere true belief. I consider the spirit of his argument, and what we might learn through considering his views.
I start by laying out his arguments. Then I consider his claim that knowledge is the goal of inquiry, that inquiry is complete when we have true belief, and so knowledge is true belief. I draw upon C S Peirce’s conception of inquiry to counter Sartwell. It seems that Peirce says belief is the goal of inquiry, but we will come to see that Peirce guides us to the view that something much stronger is required, and that this affects Sartwell’s argument too.
I then consider the swamping problem, which concerns whether knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief and is close to Sartwell’s own argument. If knowledge is more valuable than true belief, it cannot be the same thing, so if one can defeat swamping then Sartwell is defeated. I show that some Sartwellian considerations block some replies to swamping, by doing so I show that Sartwell can help us keep in focus just what we need to do in the theory of knowledge. I argue that we can explain the value of knowledge over true belief with what might be a contingent aspect of knowledge, namely the credit it brings.
In the final section, I consider how knowledge links us to the world. I consider what this might involve, and look at how we need to track the truth. I suggest that true belief cannot provide this link to the world, and that once we accept this, and consider what knowledge is meant to do, Sartwell comes unstuck.
Book Reviews by Jake Wojtowicz
Books by Jake Wojtowicz
This book offers readers a pitch-side view of the ethics of fandom. Its accessible six chapters are aimed both at true sports fans whose conscience may be occasionally piqued by their pastime, and at those who are more certain of the moral hazards involved in following a team or sport.
Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan wrestles with a range of arguments against fandom and counters with its own arguments on why being a fan is very often a good thing. It looks at the ethical issues fans face, from the violent or racist behavior of those in the stands, to players’ infamous misdeeds, to owners debasing their own clubs. In response to these moral risks, the book argues that by being critical fans, followers of a team or individual can reap the benefits of fandom while avoiding many of the ethical pitfalls. The authors show the value in deeply loving a team but also how a condition of this value is recognizing that the love of a fan comes with real limits and responsibilities.
The first aim of this paper is to provide an account of the nature of sportswashing, as a practice of using an association with sport, usually through hosting an event or owning a club (such as Newcastle United, owned by Saudi Arabia), to subvert the way that others attend to a moral violation for which the sportswashing agent is responsible. This may be done through distracting away from wrongdoing, minimising it, or normalising it.
Second, we offer an account of the distinctive wrongs of sportswashing. The gravest moral wrong is the background injustice which sportswashing threatens to perpetuate. But the distinctive wrongs of sportswashing are twofold: first, it makes participants in sport (athletes, coaches, journalists, fans) complicit in the sportswasher’s wrongdoing, which extends a moral challenge to millions of people involved with sport. Second, sportswashing corrupts valuable heritage associated with sporting traditions and institutions.
Finally, we examine how sportswashing ought to be resisted. The appropriate forms of resistance will depend upon different roles people fill, such as athlete, coach, journalist, fan. The basic dichotomy of resistance strategies is to either exit the condition of complicity, for example by refusing to participate in the sporting event, or to modify one’s engagement with the goal of transformation in mind. We recognize this is difficult and potentially burdensome: sports are an important part of many of our lives; our approach attempts to respect this.
In the first part, I explore the nature of agent-regret. Agent-regret is distinct from guilt because we can feel agent-regret without being at fault. I argue that several challenges that seek to reduce agent-regret to a form of guilt fail. I further argue that agent-regret takes as its object not only something one has done, but the fact that one did it; I discuss this in terms of what Bernard Williams called taking an “external” view on one’s own action.
I suggest that we can best understand the object of agent-regret as one’s responsibility for an outcome. I argue that this form of “responsibility” is conceptually separate from liability or answerability; it concerns whether the outcome can be ascribed to an agent. This is a restricted form of causal responsibility but retains its agential character. I suggest that we can be responsible for outcomes even when we did not intend to bring them about.
In the second part, I vindicate the propriety of agent-regret against the ideas that we are not responsible for unintended outcomes or that such responsibility is not important. I set out several challenges to this effect. I argue that we are responsible for unintended outcomes because in order to be responsible as agents at all, we must use fallible abilities. When we exercise these abilities but fail, we are responsible as agents for those unintended outcomes that arise. I then consider the importance of being responsible for particular unintended outcomes and analyse the idea that this affects our identities. I argue that responsibility for an outcome affects a form of identity, but that it does not involve essential features of a person. Instead, our responsibility for outcomes is a contingent feature that nonetheless plays an important role in our interpersonal interactions and self-conceptions. I argue that these reactions are appropriate, because our responsibility for particular outcomes is independently significant—but these reactions also lend this responsibility added significance as part of inescapable human practices.
Thus our responsibility for outcomes is important. Its importance means that it can serve as an appropriate object of agent-regret that vindicates the propriety of agent-regret. I end by considering several interesting features of agent-regret, including its expression and “pure” cases, which are cases where an agent feels agent-regret despite not regretting the result of her action.
I explore what Bernard Williams means by regarding one’s action “purely externally, as one might regard anyone else’s action”, and how it links to regret and agent-regret. I suggest some ways that we might understand the external view: as a failure to recognise what one has done, in terms of Williams’s distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic luck, and as akin to Thomas Nagel’s distinction between an internal and external view. I argue that none of these captures what Williams was getting at, because they do not allow one to take a view on one’s action. I offer two alternative accounts. One turns around what we identify with, the other concerns what we care about. Both accounts capture how I might regret, rather than agent-regret, my own action. I demonstrate that these can explain the relationship between an insurance payout and the external view, and explain the agent-relativity of agent-regret.
Crispin Sartwell, rather than treading the standard post-Gettier path and adding new conditions to the JTB conception of knowledge, removes one: he thinks that knowledge is mere true belief. I consider the spirit of his argument, and what we might learn through considering his views.
I start by laying out his arguments. Then I consider his claim that knowledge is the goal of inquiry, that inquiry is complete when we have true belief, and so knowledge is true belief. I draw upon C S Peirce’s conception of inquiry to counter Sartwell. It seems that Peirce says belief is the goal of inquiry, but we will come to see that Peirce guides us to the view that something much stronger is required, and that this affects Sartwell’s argument too.
I then consider the swamping problem, which concerns whether knowledge is more valuable than mere true belief and is close to Sartwell’s own argument. If knowledge is more valuable than true belief, it cannot be the same thing, so if one can defeat swamping then Sartwell is defeated. I show that some Sartwellian considerations block some replies to swamping, by doing so I show that Sartwell can help us keep in focus just what we need to do in the theory of knowledge. I argue that we can explain the value of knowledge over true belief with what might be a contingent aspect of knowledge, namely the credit it brings.
In the final section, I consider how knowledge links us to the world. I consider what this might involve, and look at how we need to track the truth. I suggest that true belief cannot provide this link to the world, and that once we accept this, and consider what knowledge is meant to do, Sartwell comes unstuck.
This book offers readers a pitch-side view of the ethics of fandom. Its accessible six chapters are aimed both at true sports fans whose conscience may be occasionally piqued by their pastime, and at those who are more certain of the moral hazards involved in following a team or sport.
Why It’s OK to Be a Sports Fan wrestles with a range of arguments against fandom and counters with its own arguments on why being a fan is very often a good thing. It looks at the ethical issues fans face, from the violent or racist behavior of those in the stands, to players’ infamous misdeeds, to owners debasing their own clubs. In response to these moral risks, the book argues that by being critical fans, followers of a team or individual can reap the benefits of fandom while avoiding many of the ethical pitfalls. The authors show the value in deeply loving a team but also how a condition of this value is recognizing that the love of a fan comes with real limits and responsibilities.