RESEARCH

Papers currently under review are marked with an asterisk*
​Please email me if you're interested in reading a draft.
dpayton[at]virginia[dot]edu
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SOCIAL METAPHYSICS &
PHILOSOPHICAL METHODOLOGY

PUBLISHED WORK
Emancipatory Methodology [with Elizabeth Barnes] (forthcoming in Ethics). This is a paper about the role of political commitments in descriptive projects in social ontology. PDF

Social Properties (The Routledge Handbook of Properties, 2024).
This paper is a survey of the existing literature on the social construction of properties. PhilPapers | PDF ​ ​ ​

Searching for Social Properties (Philosophy & Phenomenological Research, 2023). This is a paper about what it takes for a property to be social. PhilPapers | PDF
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​WORKS-IN-PROGRESS
Feminism, Ontological Deflationism, and Normative Structure (In Progress). This is a paper about the compatibility of ontological deflationism and structural realism in feminist metaphysics.*
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​Normative Social Ontology (In Progress).
In this paper I respond to a recent challenge for deflationists working in social ontology. I then argue that metaphysical realists working in this literature face similar challenges, and that this symmetry illuminates something important about the role of value on each framework.*

System Caging (In Progress).
This is a paper about the material nature and harms of systemic marginalization.* ​​​

PHILOSOPHY OF SEXUALITY

PUBLISHED WORK
Scenes as Games: Agency, Autonomy, and Value in BDSM (forthcoming in Hypatia). This is a paper about the metaphysics & ethics of BDSM scenes, analyzed as games. PhilPapers | PDF​​
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​WORKS-IN-PROGRESS
Sexual Compromises (In Progress, R&R).
This is a paper about the ethics of sexual compromises.* 

Sex and Class (In Progress). 
This is a paper about how class-centered aesthetic judgments can inform & distort our views about sexual ethics. Abstract

PUBLIC PHILOSOPHY

Why We Shouldn't Compare Transracial to Transgender Identity [with Robin Dembroff] (Nov. 2020, Boston Review).
Unlike gender inequality, racial inequality primarily accumulates across generations. Transracial identification undermines collective reckoning with that injustice. ​​Published Version