Joshua Fox

Visiting Assistant Professor

Office: LA 249

EDUCATION

PhD, Philosophy (2021), University of Chicago

BA, Philosophy and Fundamentals (2013), The University of Chicago

My research focuses on human well-being. In order to approach this topic, I study historical debates about life’s value. In understanding why philosophers have taken particular doubts about life’s value seriously, I hope to learn more about what is involved in living well.

The central historical figures in my research are Mill, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. However, I am interested in historical and contemporary ethics quite broadly, and have also published on the thought of Plato and Amarya Sen.

In my teaching, I have the privilege of introducing students to many of the same ethical questions that I find so gripping.

Selected Publications

“Does Schopenhauer Accept Any Positive Pleasures?” (Forthcoming). European Journal of Philosophy.

“Schopenhauer on Boredom” (2022). British Journal for the History of Philosophy 30, 3: 477-495.

“The Freedom-Based Critique of Well-Being’s Exclusive Moral Claim” (2021). The Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 22, 4: 647-662.

“Two Pessimisms in Mill” (2021). Utilitas 33, 4: 442-457.

“Gratitude to Beautiful Objects: On Nietzsche’s Claim That ‘the Beautiful Promises Happiness’” (2020). The Journal of Nietzsche Studies 51, 2: 169-187.

“Complex Wisdom in the Euthydemus” (2020). Apeiron 53, 3: 187-211.

Current Courses

2299: Life and Death

1103: Introduction to Ethics