Publications

Monograph

Minimizing Marriage: Marriage, Morality, and the Law, New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.

Translated into Japanese for Hakutakusha Press, Tokyo, 2020.

Edited collections

1. Philosophical Foundations of Children’s and Family Law, Oxford:Oxford University Press, 2018.  Co-edited with Lucinda Ferguson (Law Faculty, Oxford University).

2. After Marriage: Rethinking Marital Relationships, New York: Oxford University Press, 2016.

Journal articles and book chapters

  1. “Rights to Belong and Rights to Be Left Alone?: Claims to Caring Relationships and Their Limits,” for Being Social: The Philosophy of Social Human Rights, ed. Kimberley Brownlee, et al., (forthcoming 2022, OUP).
  2. “Price Gouging and the Duty of Easy Rescue,” Economics & Philosophy, 37:3 (2021): 329-353.
  3. “Care as Work: The Exploitation of Caring Attitudes and Emotional Labor,” in Caring for Liberalism: Dependency and Political Theory, ed. Amy Baehr and Asha Bhandary, New York: Routledge, 2020.
  4. “Rebuilding after Disaster: Inequality and the Political Importance of Place,” Social Theory and Practice 45:2 (2019): 179-204.
  5. “Polyamorous Weddings: Subversive Weddings and Weddings without Marriages,” Analize: Journal of Gender and Feminist Studies, Issue 11, 2018.
  6. “Paid and Unpaid Care: Marriage, Equality, and Domestic Workers,” Philosophical Foundations of Children’s and Family Law, ed. E. Brake and L. Ferguson (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 75-94.
  7. “Introduction: The Importance of Theory to Children’s and Family Law,” co-authored with Lucinda Ferguson, Philosophical Foundations of Children’s and Family Law, ed. E. Brake and L. Ferguson (Oxford University Press, 2018), pp. 1-40.
  8. “Love and the Law,” in Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Love, ed. Christopher Gray and Aaron Smuts, forthcoming with Oxford University Press, chapter published online 2017.
  9. “Is ‘Loving More’ Better?: The Values of Polyamory,” The Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, 7th edition, ed. Raja Halwani, Sarah Hoffman, and Alan Soble (Rowman and Littlefield, 2017), pp. 201-220.
  10. “Thinking Differently about Philosophical Progress: The Big Questions, Applied Philosophy, and The Profession,” Social Philosophy and Policy, Winter 2017, pp. 23-45.
  11.  “Marriage for Everybody: What Is Marriage Equality?” in Desire, Love, and Identity: A Textbook for the Philosophy of Sex and Love, ed. Gary Foster (Toronto: Oxford University Press Canada, 2017), pp. 310-319.
  12. “Equality and Non-Hierarchy in Marriage: What Do Feminists Really Want?” In After Marriage, ed. E. Brake (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016).
  13. “Fair Care: Eldercare and Distributive Justice,” Politics, Philosophy, and Economics, vol. 16 no. 2 (2017), 132-151, first published online August 30, 2015.
  14. “Creation Theory: Do Genetic Ties Matter?” In Permissible Progeny, ed. S. Hannan, S. Brennan, and R. Vernon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015).
  15. “Recognizing Care: The Case for Friendship and Polyamory,” Syracuse Law and Civic Engagement Journal, Issue 1, 2014 (<http://slace.syr.edu/&gt;).
  16. “Feminism, Family Law, and the Social Bases of Self-Respect.” In Re-reading the Canon Series: Feminist Interpretations of Rawls, ed. Ruth Abbey (University Park, PA: Penn State University Press, 2013), pp. 57-74.
  17. “Is Divorce Promise-Breaking?,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 14:1 (2011): 23-39.
  18. “Minimal Marriage: What Political Liberalism Implies for Marriage Law,” Ethics 120:2 (2010): 302-337.
  19. “Willing Parents: A Voluntarist Account of Parental Role Obligations.” In Procreation and Parenthood, ed. David Archard and David Benatar (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010): 151-177.
  20. “Rethinking Marriage: What Role Should the State Play?,” Res Publica (Australia), Vol. 19, No. 1 (2010): 18-22.
  21. “‘You can always come back, but you can’t come back all the way’: freedom and the past in Dylan’s recent work.” In The Political Art of Bob Dylan (2nd ed.), ed. David Boucher and Gary Browning (Exeter: Imprint Academic, 2009): 184-206.
  22.  “Marriage, Morality, and Institutional Value,” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 10:3 (2007): 243-254.  
  23. “‘To live outside the law, you must be honest’: freedom in Dylan’s lyrics.” In Dylan and Philosophy, ed. Peter Vernezze and Carl J. Porter (Chicago: Open Court, 2006): 78-89. 
  24.  “Fatherhood and Child Support:  Do Men Have a Right to Choose?,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 22:1 (2005): 55-73.  
  25. “Justice and Virtue in Kant’s Account of Marriage,” Kantian Review 9 (2005): 58-94. 
  26. “Rawls and Feminism: What Should Feminists Make of Liberal Neutrality?,” Journal of Moral Philosophy 1:3 (2004): 295-312. REPRINTED in The Legacy of John Rawls, ed. Thom Brooks and Fabian Freyenhagen (London: Continuum Press, 2005): 67-84. 
  27. “Responsibility, Paternity, and the Costs of Rearing Children: Do abortion rights undermine child support obligations?” Beihefte of Archiv für Rechts- und Sozialphilosophie, (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2004): 211-218.
  28. “A Liberal Response to Catharine MacKinnon,” Southwest Philosophical Studies 22 (2000): 17-23. 
  29.  “Love’s Paradox: Hegel’s Account of Marriage,” Women’s Philosophy Review 22, Special Issue on Hegel, ed. Stella Sandford and Alison Stone (1999): 80-104.
  30.  “Marriage, Influence and Deception in Merchant Ivory’s Adaptations of The Europeans and The Bostonians.” In Henry James on the Stage and Screen, ed. John Bradley (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), pp. 143-156.
  31. “Personhood and the Family: Hegel’s Account,” Contemporary Political Studies (Proceedings of the Political Studies Association, 1997): 365-371. 

In progress and under review

  1. “Is Polyamory Permissible?,” for Norton Introduction to Ethics, ed. E. Harman and A. Guerrero (completed).
  2. “The Wrong of Stalking,” in progress.
  3. “Rights to Belong and Rights to Be Left Alone?: Claims to Caring Relationships and Their Limits,” for Being Social: The Philosophy of Social Human Rights, ed. Kimberley Brownlee et al., under contract with OUP.
  4. “Temporary Relationships,” for Neglected Relationships, ed. Monika Betzler and Jörg Löschke, under contract with OUP, in progress.
  5. A book manuscript on the state’s role in disaster response.

Public philosophy

  1. “In Texas, price gouging during disasters is illegal – it is also on very shaky ethical ground,” The Conversation, 2/24/2021; reprinted in 22 newspapers and magazines including Chicago Tribune and Houston Chronicle; over 10,000 readers.
  2. “Single During the Holidays Doesn’t Mean Alone and Lonely,” The Conversation, 12/20/2018, updated 2/11/2021; reprinted in 34 newspapers and magazines including The Citizen (South Africa), Houston Chronicle, Rappler (Philipines); over 30,000 readers.
  3. “To Make Families Good for Democracy, Broaden the Notion of Family Itself,” <http://www.zocalopublicsquare.org/2016/12/15/make-families-good-democracy-broaden-notion-family/ideas/nexus/&gt;, December 15, 2016.
  4. “Freedom and Other Philosophical Themes in Dylan’s Lyrics,” The Daily Nous, <http://dailynous.com/2016/10/14/philosophers-on-bob-dylans-words-nobel-prize-win/&gt;, October 14, 2016.
  5. “We May Procreate Instead of Adopting,” The Philosophers’ Magazine, October 2016.
  6. “Why not privatize disaster response? The political significance of unnatural disasters,” What’s Wrong?, < http://whatswrongcvsp.com/2015/09/28/why-not-privatize-disaster-response-the-political-significance-of-unnatural-disasters/&gt;, 9/28/2015. (REPRINTED, The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, writing for Life, edited by Roen, forthcoming)
  7. Five-part animated lecture series on my work on marriage for Wireless Philosophy (wi-phi.com).
  8. “Why can’t we be (legally recognized) friends?,” theForum (LSE), <blogs.lse.ac.uk/theforum/why-cant-we-be-legally-recognized-friends/>, September 2015.
  9. Contributor, “Philosophers on the Supreme Court’s Gay Marriage Ruling,” Daily Nous, <http://dailynous.com/2015/06/29/philosophers-on-the-supreme-courts-gay-marriage-ruling/&gt;, 6/29/2015. (Viewed directly almost 40,000 times within 24 hours) (REPRINTED, The McGraw-Hill Guide: Writing for College, writing for Life, edited by Roen, forthcoming)
  10. “Just Care: What Society Owes the Elderly.” Philosop-her, < https://politicalphilosopher.net/2015/01/11/featured-philosopher-elizabeth-brake/>, 1/16/2015.

Encyclopedia entries

  1. “Marriage and Domestic Partnership,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Fall 2009, updated 2012, 2016.
  2. “Parenthood and Procreation,” co-authored with Joseph Millum, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Spring 2012, updated 2016, 2021.
  3. “Marriage” and “Adultery,” International Encyclopedia of Ethics, ed. Hugh LaFollette, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013; “Marriage” updated 2019.   
  4. “Hegel,” in Sex from Plato to Paglia: A Philosophical Encyclopedia, ed. Alan Soble (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006): 429-435.
  5.  “Kant,” in Sex from Plato to Paglia: A Philosophical Encyclopedia, ed. Alan Soble (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 2006): 543-553.

Book reviews

  1. Clare Chambers, Against Marriage: An Egalitarian Defence of the Marriage-Free State (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), in Mind, published online September 12, 2018 (https://doi.org/10.1093/mind/fzy041) [4,000-word review essay].
  2. Stephen Macedo, Just Married: Same-Sex Couples, Monogamy & the Future of Marriage (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2015), in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 20(2), April 2017, pp. 443-446.
  3.  Christine Overall, Why Have Children?, in Ethics 123:2, January 2013, pp. 391-396.
  4.  Tamara Metz, Untying the Knot (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2010), in Philosophy in Review, Vol. 30 No. 6, 2010: 418-421.
  5.  Rebecca Kukla, Mass Hysteria (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005), in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, November 2006.
  6.  Robert Pippin, Henry James and Modern Moral Life (Oxford: OUP, 1999), in The Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 52, No. 208, 2002: 397-398.
  7.  Joram Haber and Mark Halfon, eds., Essays on the Work of Virginia Held: Norms and Values (Oxford: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998),in Hypatia 17.1, 2002: 200-203.
  8.  Kimberly Curtis, Our Sense of the Real: Aesthetic Experience and Arendtian Politics (Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1999) and Dana Villa, Politics, Philosophy, Terror: Essays on the Thought of Hannah Arendt (Princeton: Princeton Univ. Press, 1999), in The Journal of Politics, Vol. 63 No. 2, 2001: 661-4.
  9.  Joan Kennedy Taylor, What to Do When You Don’t Want to call the Cops (New York: NYU Press, 1999), in Reason Papers No. 25, 2000: 101-112.
  10.    Jeffrey Gauthier, Hegel and Feminist Social Criticism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1997), Philosophy in Review, Vol. 18 No. 6, 1998: 421-422.