APA Member Interview, Jordan Walters

"I'm working on a series of papers about the value of humanity. The first paper examines orthodox accounts of the value of humanity, recent heterodox proposals, and argues that neither can vindicate the intuition that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity. The second paper develops and defends the view that another's bare humanity suffices to ground their being valuable. The third paper argues that we owe something to the dead themselves. A fourth paper asks how we should balance obligations between past, present, and future generations; I argue that our duties to the dead sometimes trump our duties to future generations."

"I'd like to be Bach on the day that he finished composing the Cello Suites. I imagine it would be nice to fall asleep playing them all in my head, knowing, for the first time ever, how it all hangs together."

"The list is too long. Here are a few that pop out: Michael Rosen's "The Shadow of God: Kant, Hegel, and the Passage from Heaven to History" Charles Taylor's "Cosmic Connections: Poetry in the Age of Disenchantment" Campbell McGrath's "Fever of Unknown Origin: Poems" Marilynne Robinson's "Reading Genesis" James C. Scott's "Seeing Like a State" Ben Lerner's "The Hatred of Poetry" Sheila Heti's "Alphabetical Diaries" Martin Hägglund's "This Life: Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom" David Sedaris's "The Best of Me""

Jordan Walters is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in the Faculty of Philosophy at the University of Oxford and recently received a PhD in Philosophy from McGill University. His research focuses on the value of humanity through a series of papers that critique orthodox and heterodox accounts, defend that another's bare humanity suffices to ground value, argue that something is owed to the dead, and examine how to balance obligations between past, present, and future generations, sometimes prioritizing duties to the dead. He would like to be Bach on the day he finished composing the Cello Suites. His to-read list includes works by Michael Rosen, Charles Taylor, and James C. Scott. After high school he moved out and worked at a cafe9.

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