Michael Zhao

About Me

I'm an assistant professor in the philosophy department at Notre Dame.

I work mainly in ethics, though I have interests in ancient Chinese philosophy, social and political philosophy, and formal philosophy as well. Much of my work concerns the nature of the moral emotions, the normative significance of moral anti-realism, and meaning in life.

I received my PhD from NYU in 2018, and was an undergraduate in philosophy at Princeton.

Here is my CV. My e-mail is mike.zhao@nd.edu.

Publications

"Can Moral Anti-Realists Theorize?"
The Australasian Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming)
Pre-Print, Abstract
Call "radical moral theorizing" the project of developing a moral theory that not only tries to conform to our existing moral intuitions, but also manifests various theoretical virtues: consistency, simplicity, explanatory depth, and so on. Many moral philosophers assume that radical moral theorizing does not require any particular metaethical commitments. In this paper, I argue against this assumption. The most natural justification for radical moral theorizing presupposes moral realism, broadly construed; in contrast, there may be no justification for radical moral theorizing if moral anti-realism is true.
"Ignore Risk; Maximize Expected Moral Value"
Noûs 57 (2023): 144–161
Pre-Print, Published Version, Abstract
Many philosophers assume that, when making moral decisions under uncertainty, we should choose the option that has the greatest expected moral value, regardless of how risky it is. But their arguments for maximizing expected moral value do not support it over rival, risk-averse approaches. In this paper, I present a novel argument for maximizing expected value: when we think about larger series of decisions that each decision is a part of, all but the most risk-averse agents would prefer that we consistently choose the option with the highest expected value. To the extent that what we choose on a given occasion should be guided by the entire series of choices we prefer, then on each occasion, we should choose the option with the highest expected moral value.
"Guilt without Perceived Wrongdoing"
Philosophy and Public Affairs 48 (2020): 285–314
Pre-Print, Published Version, Abstract
According to the received account of guilt in the philosophical literature, one cannot feel guilt unless one takes oneself to have done something morally wrong. But ordinary people feel guilt in many cases in which they do not take themselves to have done anything morally wrong. In this paper, I focus on one kind of guilt without perceived wrongdoing, guilt about being merely causally responsible for a bad state-of-affairs. I go on to present a novel account of guilt that explains guilt about mere causal responsibility, according to which guilt represents part of the self as bound up with what is bad.
"Solidarity, Fate-Sharing, and Community"
Philosophers' Imprint 19 (2019): 1–13
Published Version, Abstract
In this paper, I give a philosophical account of solidarity, answering three salient questions: what motivates acts of solidarity; what unifies different acts into tokens of a single type of act, one of solidarity; and what values acts of solidarity exhibit. The answer to all three, I argue, involves a certain way of relating to others: identifying with them on the basis of shared features, and identifying with the larger group that one and the others both belong to.
"Meaning, Moral Realism, and the Importance of Morality"
Philosophical Studies 117 (2020): 653–666
Pre-Print, Published Version, Abstract
Many philosophers have suspected that the normative importance of morality depends on moral realism. In this paper, I vindicate a version of this suspicion: I argue that if teleological forms of moral realism, those that posit an objective purpose to human life, are true, then we gain a distinctive reason to do what morality requires. I argue for this by showing that if these forms of realism are true, then an attachment to morality can provide a life with meaning, which is a widespread human need. I also argue that rival meta-ethical views, like anti-realism or thinner forms of moral realism, cannot make morality meaning-conferring in this way.
"Intervention and the Probabilities of Indicative Conditionals"
The Journal of Philosophy 112 (2015): 477–503
Pre-Print, Published Version, Abstract
A few purported counterexamples to the Adams thesis have cropped up in the literature in the last few decades. I propose a theory that accounts for them, in a way that makes the connections between indicative conditionals and counterfactuals clearer.

In Progress/Under Review

A paper on narratives and meaning in life (draft)
A paper on the fittingness of emotions (draft)
A paper on sunk costs (draft)
A paper on why we need evil
A paper on tradition and self-transcendence
A paper on survivor guilt (with Jordan MacKenzie)
A paper on quasi-realism and disingenuity (with Martín Abreu Zavaleta, Harjit Bhogal, and Daniel Waxman)

People who I'm not

In naming me, my parents decided to conjoin one of the world's most common given names with one of the world's most common surnames. As a result, there are lots of people not identical to me who share my name, many of whom have a larger internet presence than I do. Here's a (non-comprehensive) list of people who I'm not: