Research interests

• Ancient Chinese Philosophy
• Ancient Greek and Roman Philosophy
• Ethics

Current research

Dr. Kim has research interests in moral philosophy, political philosophy, and their global histories (especially in ancient China and ancient Greece). Below is a summary of how Dr. Kim’s recent research ties together and where it is headed. For his most up-to-date CV and his full list of publications (with abstracts), please visit his PhilPeople page.

The summative effect of Dr. Kim’s research is to highlight the fundamental differences between ancient philosophy and modern philosophy and thereby illuminate the latter's deepest commitments. Take for instance the ideas about self-interest that we find in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, the focus of Kim’s earlier work. Kim has given reasons to doubt a tendency in the scholarship, one that attributes altruism to Aristotle and thereby establishes continuity between Aristotle and the modern West. It has been typical for interpreters to point to Aristotle’s depiction of the virtuous agent as acting for the sake of the fine (to kalon) and then to infer the agent’s disinterestedness, but Kim has argued against this in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy. Others have inferred disinterestedness from Aristotle’s idea that in virtue friendships, one loves the other on account of the other herself. Again, Kim has cast doubt on this reading in the European Journal of Philosophy; relatedly, he has raised questions about the disinterestedness of loving simpliciter (see the Journal of the History of Philosophy) and of choosing something on account of itself (see History of Philosophy Quarterly). In Ancient Philosophy, Kim has argued against numerous attempts to read Aristotle’s arguments for why the happy person needs friends in a disinterested fashion. More recently, Kim has given detailed accounts of inegalitarianism and partiality in Aristotle, in the British Journal for the History of Philosophy and Apeiron, respectively. Kim will continue to explore Aristotle’s treatments of self-interest and partiality in a book project that gives a detailed account of Aristotelian self-love.

Shifting from ancient Greece to ancient China, Dr. Kim has also assessed what is often deemed to be the first consequentialist theory, the moral-political philosophy of the Mohists. The Mohists believed that what makes an action right is that it benefits the world, where this benefit is often depicted in terms of the bare necessities of life. Given that the Mohists restrict one’s pursuits exclusively to this bare benefit, they have from the very beginning been taken to task for stripping life of what makes it worth living. However, in Analysis, Kim has argued that the Mohists have reasons for their austerity that are worth heeding; the hedonic treadmill raises problems of satisfaction and sustainability for those seeking to extend the sphere of goods beyond the bare necessities. In the British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Kim has argued against an interpretation that takes the later generation of Mohists to hold a much more permissive notion of benefit, to the effect of adopting a preference-satisfaction utilitarianism. Now, in addition to appealing to benefit as what makes an action right, the Mohists also appeal to Heaven’s intent. This has led to a debate between consequentialist interpretations and divine command theory interpretations. In Dao, Kim argues that the texts are pointing to two aspects of one and the same criterion. 'Benefit to the world' refers to the prospective aspect of this criterion, whereas 'Heaven’s intent' refers to the retrospective aspect. Importantly, this latter indicates that the scope of consideration is restricted; instead of the equal moral consideration for everyone that we find in Bentham and Mill and that most commentators attribute to the Mohists, we have moral consideration that is suspended for poor moral performers. This question of equal standing in the Mohists is the theme of another of Kim’s book projects. It will constitute a timely investigation into the question of how one should treat those with whom one has a suboptimal relation, whether because of moral disagreement or because the other has committed acts 'beyond the pale'.