DEE PAYTON

I'm an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Virginia. My current research focuses on topics in the philosophy of sexuality, emotion, and methodologies in social metaphysics and analytic feminism. I earned my PhD from Rutgers University (New Brunswick) in May 2021 and my dissertation was on the metaphysics of social construction.

Short descriptions of each of my papers are listed below. Papers currently under review are marked with an asterisk.*
Please email me if you're interested in reading a draft.

Email: dpayton[at]virginia[dot]edu

Academic CV

ACADEMIC PUBLICATIONS
SOCIAL METAPHYSICS & PHILOSOPHICAL METHODOLOGY

Normative Social Ontology (Journal of Social Ontology, forthcoming). This is a paper about the role of value in projects in social ontology. PDF
Emancipatory Methodology [with Elizabeth Barnes] (Ethics, 2025). This is a paper about the role of political commitments in descriptive projects in social ontology. PhilPapers
Social Properties (The Routledge Handbook of Properties, 2024). This paper is a survey of the existing literature on the social construction of properties. PhilPapers
Searching for Social Properties (Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, 2022). This is a paper about what it takes for a property to be social. PhilPapers

PHILOSOPHY OF SEXUALITY & EMOTION

Scenes as Games: Agency, Autonomy, and Value in BDSM (Hypatia, 2025). This is a paper about the metaphysics & ethics of BDSM scenes, analyzed as games. PhilPapers

WORKS-IN-PROGRESS
SOCIAL METAPHYSICS & PHILOSOPHICAL METHODOLOGY

Easy Ontology, Hard Ethics (In Progress). In this paper I argue that the normative commitments characteristic of projects in critical social ontology are incompatible with NeoCarnapian deflationary metaphysics.*
System Caging (In Progress). This is a paper about the material nature and harms of systemic marginalization.*

Critical Explanation (In Progress). This is a paper about levels of explanation in critical philosophy. When does it make sense to analyze problems in terms of representations like norms and concepts? When does it make sense to analyze problems in terms of materials or systems? I argue that the answers here are importantly related to the solutions that critical projects aim to recommend.

PHILOSOPHY OF SEXUALITY & EMOTION

Sexual Compromises (In Progress). This is a paper about the ethics of persuading someone to compromise on sex.*
Natural Horror (In Progress). In this paper I argue that there is something strange going on in the analytic philosophy of horror: it's the only area of philosophy of emotion which treats its subject largely within the domain of fiction. This paper is about why that happens and the important questions we miss when we treat horror exclusively through the lens of fiction.*

Difficult Desires (In Progress). I argue that our notions of agency, autonomy, and pleasure are insufficient to the normative aspects of "difficult" sexual desires, or desires which seem to incorporate pleasure and pain in ways which raise difficult questions about harm.
Kinky Sexualities. (In Progress). In this symposium article I work from Matthew Andler's Sexual Orientation and Identity (2025) and Kevin Richardson's The End of Binaries (2025) to explore some of the questions and puzzles of kink.
Sex & Disgust (In Progress). In this paper I argue that our aesthetic & moral judgments about sex are related in politically important ways. Abstract