Curriculum Vitae 2008
Neil Delaney
5317 Indian River Drive #292
Las Vegas, NV 89103
E-mail: neil.delaney@gmail.com
Office: (702) 405 9757
Cell: (269) 267 2756
Education:
Yale Law School (2000-2001) no degree taken
Princeton University, Ph.D. in Philosophy (1997)
Princeton University, M.A. in Philosophy (1993)
Stanford University, B.A. in Philosophy with Honors and Distinction (1990)
Areas of Specialization:
Moral Philosophy, Moral Psychology, Philosophy of the Emotions, Action
Theory.
Areas of Competence:
History of Ethics, Applied Ethics (Bioethics, Military Ethics), Jurisprudence,
Heidegger, Philosophy of Sport.
Articles and Reviews:
 “Romantic Love and Loving Commitment: Articulating a Modern Ideal,”
American Philosophical Quarterly 33, 4, 1996 pp.339-56.
 Review of Lansing Pollock, The Free Society (Westview Press, 1996), Ethics
October 1997, pp.246-47.
 “To Double Business Bound: Reflections on the Doctrine of Double Effect,”
American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 75, 4, 2001 pp.561-83.
 “A Note on Intention and the Doctrine of Double Effect,” Philosophical Studies
134, 2, 2007 pp.103-110.
 “Romantic Love and Loving Commitment: Articulating a Modern Ideal,”
(revised version), invited for publication in German translation in Von Person
zu Person (Suhrkamp Verlag), ed. Axel Honneth, August 2007.
 Review of T.A. Cavanaugh, Double Effect Reasoning: Doing Good and
Avoiding Evil (Oxford, 2006), Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, October
2007.
 “Two Cheers for ‘Closeness’: Terror, Targeting and Double Effect,”
Philosophical Studies 137, 3, 2008 pp.335-367.
 “Revisiting Kant on the Value of Acting from the Motive of Duty,” forthcoming
in American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.
 Review of T.M. Scanlon, Moral Dimensions: Permissibility, Meaning, Blame
(Belknap/Harvard 2008), forthcoming in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews.
Book:
 Co-editor (with David Baggett), Tennis and Philosophy (Philosophy and
Popular Culture Series), University Press of Kentucky, forthcoming 2009.
Dissertation: Essays on Ethics and Action (Advisor Gilbert Harman)
Commissioned Work:
 “Federer and Artistry: A Study in Sports Aesthetics” commissioned for Tennis
and Philosophy (Philosophy and Popular Culture Series), University Press of
Kentucky, eds. David Baggett, Neil Delaney, forthcoming 2009.
 “Friendship, Rivalry, Greatness,” commissioned for Tennis and Philosophy
(Philosophy and Popular Culture Series), University Press of Kentucky, eds.
David Baggett, Neil Delaney, forthcoming 2009.
 “Alcoholism, Agency and Identification,” commissioned for Iron Man and
Philosophy (Philosophy and Popular Culture Series), Blackwell, ed. Mark D.
White, forthcoming 2009.
Academic Employment History:
Visiting Assistant Professor, UNLV, 2008Visiting Ryan Family Chair of Metaphysics and Moral Philosophy, Georgetown
University 2006-08
Visiting Scholar (sponsor Professor S. Darwall), University of Michigan 2005-06
Visiting Scholar (sponsor Professor J. Perry), Stanford University, 2004-05
Visiting Assistant Professor, Idaho State University, Spring Semester 2004
Assistant Professor, Arizona State University, 1997-99
Lecturer, Princeton University, 1996-97
Tutor, Monash University, 1996
Legal Employment:
William R. Fix and Associates, P.C. (Jackson Hole, Wyoming), 1999-2004 (Civil
Litigation)
Presentations:
“Gyges, Nozick and Integrity (With a Splash of Soma),” UNLV Spring 2009
“Love’s Contours: Afterthoughts and Friendly Amendments,” New Mexico State
University, February 2008
“Holistic Choice and Complex Intentions: A Sellarsian Approach to Double
Effect,” UNLV, November 2007
“Love, Motivation, Obligation,” Inaugural Baylor Symposium on Faith and
Culture, Friendship: Quests for Character, Community and Truth. October 2007
“What is Morality?,” Baruch College CUNY, January 2007
“Two Cheers for ‘Closeness’: Terror, Targeting and the Doctrine of Double
Effect,” Georgetown University, March 2006
“Love and Truth,” University of South Carolina, January 2006
“Love, Motivation, Obligation,” University of South Carolina, January 2006
“Intention and Evaluation,” Arizona State University, February 1997
Conferences:
Commentator, “The Experience of Authorship and Automatic Action,” APA
Central Division 2008
Chair, “Friendship in the Monastic Tradition,” Inaugural Baylor Symposium on
Faith and Culture, Friendship: Quests for Character, Community and Truth.
October 2007
Commentator, “Rethinking Double Effect,” Georgetown University April 2007
Chair, Colloquium, “Neurath’s Ethical Naturalism,” APA Central Division 2007
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Commentator, “Plans and their Accomplishment,” American Maritain
Association Meeting, APA Eastern Division 2006
Chair, Symposium, “Hobbes’ Fool Revisited,” APA Western Division 1998
Editorial:
Referee, Philosophical Studies.
Referee, American Philosophical Quarterly.
Referee, Philosophical Quarterly.
Referee, Oxford University Press.
Service:
Curriculum Committee, Arizona State University
Professional Organizations:
American Philosophical Association
American Catholic Philosophical Association
Hume Society
Recent Teaching:
 Honors Critical Thinking and Reasoning, Fall 2008, UNLV
 Critical Thinking and Reasoning, Fall 2008, UNLV
 Aspects of Love: Romantic Love, Spring 2008, Georgetown
 Introduction to Ethics, Spring 2008, Georgetown
 Independent Study Tutorial: Romantic Love, Fall 2007, Georgetown
 Aspects of Love: Sexual Desire, Fall 2007, Georgetown
 Introduction to Ethics, Fall 2007, Georgetown
 Jurisprudence: Legal Positivism, Spring 2007, Georgetown
 Independent Study Tutorial: Ethics of Stem Cell Research, Spring 2007,
Georgetown
 Introduction to Ethics, Spring 2007, Georgetown
 Recent Work in Moral Psychology: Aspects of Love, Fall 2006, Georgetown
 Introduction to Ethics, Fall 2006, Georgetown
Honors and Grants:
Andrew W. Mellon Graduate Prize Fellow at the Princeton University Center for
Human Values 1995-96
Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities 1990-93
Robert M. Golden Award for Excellence in the Humanities and Creative Arts,
Stanford University 1990
Rhodes Scholarships Finalist 1990
A. Bartlett Giamatti Graduate Prize, Yale University 1990 (declined)
Phi Beta Kappa 1990 (Student Commencement Speaker)
Recent Work and Work In Progress: Aspects of Love, Double Effect Reasoning
My work is currently divided between two central projects, one a book
manuscript in the philosophy of the emotions titled Aspects of Love, the other ongoing
research into the moral significance of the doctrine of double effect.
In its present form the book manuscript consists of essays treating various aspects
of love, focusing primarily on romantic love and high friendship. The opening essay
offers a substantial romantic ideal for modern Westerners, and makes explicit both the
psychological needs people commonly expect romantic love to satisfy and the robust yet
conditional commitment it demands. The basic ideas are the following: people regularly
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want to form an intimate union with another, to be loved for properties of certain sorts,
and to have this love generate and sustain a distinctive sort of commitment to them. I
close with a detailed account of what I term a “loving commitment.” The loving
commitment emerges to be a commitment to the well-being of the partner that is
grounded in a shared history of active romantic loving. It is distinguished from this last in
that it tends to characterize relations between persons when one of them has fallen victim
to an illness or other sort of infirmity that compromises their ability to interact in the
psychologically sophisticated and, to a lesser extent, physically intimate ways that
characterize a romantic partnership operating in fullness. Care is taken to distinguish the
loving commitment from active dynamic romantic love; this latter makes room for
substantial shifts in persons’ self conceptions over time and is characterized by
receptivity to such transformations. So, for instance, a professional athlete who primarily
sees himself as such in youth may develop into a statesman, and hope that his partner’s
attitude towards his shifting interests and possibly shifting values will be embraced rather
than merely indulged.
The second essay makes a number of distinctions between the motive of love and
the motive of duty, and argues that ideally the former acts in concert with the latter so as
to generate constancy in loving relations. The essay begins with some elementary
remarks concerning Kant’s so-called benevolent shopkeeper and variations thereupon. It
is suggested that the sentiment of benevolence that merely functions so as to obscure the
motive of moral significance for Kant, namely duty, in fact plays a significant moral role.
The moral role is bound up with the assessment of character, and suggestive examples
from history are used to demonstrate this point. The essay then turns to a case in which a
husband or wife is tempted to infidelity. It is argued that resistance to the temptation is
optimally (at least from the point of view of the spouse) grounded in love for the spouse
rather than reflection upon a duty to resist initiated perhaps through promise or vow. This
is not, however, to undermine altogether the significance of promises of this sort; it is
rather to put a proper emphasis on the sentiment of love as an effective spring to action
and to suggest that the sentiment itself ideally brings a past promise or vow of fidelity
into present relief in a choice situation.
The third essay directly addresses sexual love and sexual desire and offers a
framework for understanding sexual partners’ customary wants. The basic idea is the
following: people regularly want to be appreciated erotically in ways not too much at
variance with the ways in which they see and appreciate themselves. This is not to imply
a narcissism at the bottom of sexual longing but rather a desire to be seen and valued by
the other in ways that make some sense to oneself. The suggestion is that insofar as the
lover takes delight in aspects of your physicality that you yourself find unattractive or
even repugnant, the possibility arises that your conflicting conceptions of the beautiful
and erotic threaten to undermine the psychological intimacy most lovers seek to cultivate.
Care is taken to allow for new ways of seeing oneself as an erotic subject through the lens
of the other. This is no different from the way in which one might come to appreciate
aspects of one’s personality (for instance patience, self-deprecating wit) through the
course of being valued for these qualities. Nevertheless it is urged that we customarily
strive to be seen by and desired by the other in ways that we can understand and
appreciate.
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Work in progress relating to the manuscript concerns the role played by what I
call the “aspirational self” in forming loving unions and becoming the sort of person one
would like to be. The driving thought is that the love affair provides an opportunity to put
a best foot forward so as to draw the attentions of a partner, and that without criticizable
deception the challenge to become a better version of yourself, one that you can more
easily love, can be taken up and met as you endeavor to transcend some of your defects.
Loving relations can thus be seen as a kind of shared cooperative activity whereby the
parties to the romance (or high friendship) increasingly come to resemble their best
selves, which is emphatically not to say that the activity becomes a sort of charade
wherein persons endeavor to present themselves as beings fundamentally different from
what they are or can reasonably aspire to be.
My longtime work on double effect has led me to adopt what might be called a
Sellarsian solution to the notorious problem of “closeness.” This problem can be briefly
explained as follows: presuming that we sometimes sense a moral difference between
action plans that include bad effects that are intended by the agent and plans that include
bad effects that are merely foreseen by the agent, how are we going to stop some
evaluators of action plans from resolving the plans into the intended and merely foreseen
in ways that seem sophistical? So, to take two examples, one a classic and one brand
new: (1) why do most of us, pace Hart, not want to call a craniotomy operation on a fetus
an intended head modification and a merely foreseen bringing about of fetal death? (2)
why do most of us not want to call embryonic stem cell extraction an intended extraction
and a merely foreseen bringing about of embryonic termination?
The Sellarsian solution basically runs as follows. We begin our formation of
effective action plans by engaging in practical reasoning that leads us to the formation of
a holistic choice of a scenario. This choice importantly includes those aspects of the plan
that strike us as strong reasons for acting and those aspects that strike us as strong reasons
against acting. That is to say, as we deliberate over what to do, we come to a practical
conclusion that through our holistic choice generates a complex intention to act, one
which includes producing what we take to be the good and what we take to be the bad.
Now, in cases of closeness between effects, this complex intention is to be taken as
irreducible, which is to say that an intention to: [crush the skull of the fetus and kill the
fetus] cannot be resolved into a (simple) intention to crush the skull of the fetus and a
(simple) intention to kill the fetus. If this resolution is allowed in such cases, the
evaluator looks silly, because it is clear that the agent is not inclined to act in ways
characteristic of someone who simply intends to kill the fetus. So we have used the
notion of closeness (which is itself being taken as something of a Potter Stewart
unanalyzable primitive) to block some resolutions of complex intentions into sets of
simple ones. In this way we can avoid attributing to the agent a simple intention to
produce the bad, in this case (arguably, of course) illicit destruction of human life.
Double effect should now be understood as generally prohibiting simple intentions to
produce the bad as a means to some good as well as irreducibly complex intentions to
produce effects some of which are treated as reasons against action.
This leaves us with what may perhaps be an intractable dilemma, clearly noted by
Michael Bratman: how can we, in a principled way, block some resolutions of complex
intentions into simple components and not others? Importantly, how can we adopt this
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model of practical reasoning without losing our moral sense that sometimes there is a
difference worth a difference between specific sets of action plans, perhaps most
importantly the difference most of us detect between, on the one hand, strategic or
tactical bombing of military targets and, on the other, terror bombing of enemy
noncombatants? This is a problem that remains for the account on offer, and remains for
any account that attempts to block the sophistical exercise of the doctrine of double
effect.
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