Landon Frim, Ph.D.

Stony Brook University & Philipps-Universität Marburg

Ph.D.

Philosophy

2012

Transatlantic Collegium of Philosophy

Stony Brook University

Graduate Certificate

Cultural Studies

2010

Stony Brook University

M.A.

Philosophy

2009

Should the State Teach (a Secular) Ethics?

Ethics Across the Curriculum Conference  Grand Rapids, Michigan

2017-10-01

Violence and Peace in Islam

Annual Khatib Lecture  St. Joseph’s College

2017-04-01

Marx’s Metaphysics: Re-interpreting Marxist Humanism through a Rationalist Metaphysic

Historical Materialism Conference  New York University

2015-04-01

Support for the St. Joseph's College ethics research

Rubin Foundation

2016-02-01

This grant supported research and teaching in the field of ethics, especially student participation in team ethics debates.

Impartiality or Oikeiôsis? Two Models of Universal Benevolence

Landon Frim

2019

‘Universal benevolence’ may be defined as the goal of promoting the welfare of every individual, however remote, to the best of one’s ability. Currently, the commonest model of universal benevolence is that of ‘impartiality,’ the notion promoted by Peter Singer, Roderick Firth, and others, that every individual (including oneself) is of equal intrinsic worth. This paper contends that the impartialist model is seriously flawed. Specifically, it is demonstrated that impartialist accounts of benevolence (1) attempt to draw positive moral conclusions from negative premises, (2) draw actual conclusions from merely counterfactual premises, (3) fail to live up to stated claims of naturalism, and (4) give no compelling account of moral motivation. By contrast, I propose an alternate model of universal benevolence, grounded in the Stoic, cosmopolitan theory of oikeiôsis, i.e. ‘appropriation.’ Such a model, in contradistinction to impartiality, would see benevolence as the positive identification between moral agent and moral patient, rather than a charitable sacrifice of oneself for a distinct but equal other. An ethics of oikeiôsis has the further benefit of avoiding each of the four above mentioned conceptual pitfalls common to impartialist theories.

View more

Book Chapter: Back to the Futurists? On Accelerationism Left and Right

Landon Frim and Harrison Fluss

2018

Dr. Landon Frim writes about the accelerationist movement in both left- and right-wing politics.

View more

Nature or Atoms? Reframing the IR Curriculum through Ethical Worldviews

Landon Frim

2017

The international relations (IR) curriculum has long presented a dichotomy between the so-called “realist” and “idealist” positions. Idealists seek to embody universal norms of justice in foreign policy. Realists, by contrast, see competition between states, the balance of power, and relative advantage as basic to international politics. Though considered polar opposites, both the realist and idealist affirm the primacy of the nation state as a sovereign political unit, and so neither embraces cosmopolitanism in the strongest sense, i.e., the transcendence of national divisions as such. Opening up the IR curriculum to such a radical possibility requires its reframing in terms of underlying, ethical worldviews. Under this lens, it becomes evident that the realist and idealist share far more in common than contemporary policy debates would suggest. It also points us toward the space for an alternate ethical worldview, provided by Stoic rationalism, which is more viable for grounding cosmopolitan thought.

View more