DEPARTMENT OF PHILOSOPHY

I work on contemporary issues in moral and political philosophy and on the history of these fields.  I have published work on public reason, Kant’s moral and political philosophy and his philosophy of religion, the philosophy of education, interpersonal relationships, and love. 

I currently have two book manuscripts underway.  In the first, I am concerned with how to understand the reasons that we have for valuing people and things.  I argue that we cannot reason to, but nevertheless do have reasons for, our valuing attitudes.  I explicate the nature of these reasons and explore the implications for moral education and childrearing, interpersonal relationships, and politics in a pluralistic society.

The second book project develops Iris Murdoch’s ethical theory.  Murdoch holds that the stories that we tell and accept about the world make certain ethical concepts available to us while occluding others.  This insight generates a distinctive approach to questions concerning value, freedom, love, and morality.  I present Murdoch’s view in a systematic way and put her in conversation with work in contemporary ethics and moral philosophy.

I am the Director of the Brady Scholars Program and a senior fellow at the Center for Ethics and Education.  I am currently a fellow at the Kaplan Institute for the Humanities and a Newbigin Fellow.  I have held past fellowships at the Princeton University Center for Human Values and CEPPA at the University of St Andrews.  

---

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• “Buck-passing and the Value of a Person,” Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Mark Timmons, ed, Oxford University Press, 2023.
• “Learning from Love: Reasoning, Respect, and the Value of a Person,” in The Value of Humanity: A Reevaluation. Sarah Buss and Nandi Theunissen, eds., Oxford University Press, 2023.
• “Bad Debt: The Kantian Inheritance of Humean Desire,” The Idea of Freedom: New Essays on the Kantian Theory of Freedom. Dai Heide and Evan Tiffany, eds, Oxford University Press, 2023.
• “A Question of One’s Own,” in Normativity and Agency, Tamar Shapiro, Kyla Ebels-Duggan, and Sharon Street, eds, Oxford University Press, 2022.
• “Beyond Words: Inarticulable Reasons and Reasonable Commitments,” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research. 98:3, May 2019, pp 623-641.
• “The Right, the Good, and the Threat of Despair: (Kantian) Ethics and the Need for Hope in God,” in Oxford Studies in the Philosophy of Religion, Volume 7.  Jon Kvanvig, ed.  Oxford, 2015.
• “Autonomy as Intellectual Virtue,” in The Aims of Higher Education: Problems of Morality and Justice, Harry Brighouse and Michael MacPherson, eds.  University of Chicago, 2015.
• “Educating for Autonomy: An Old-fashioned View,” Social Philosophy and Policy, 31:1, Fall 2014, pp257-275.
• “Dealing With the Past: Responsibility and Personal History,” Philosophical Studies, vol. 164:1, 2013, 141-161.
• “The Beginning of Community: Politics in the Face of Disagreement,” The Philosophical Quarterly vol. 60:238, January 2010, 50-71.
•  “Moral Community: Escaping the Ethical State of Nature,” Philosophers’ Imprint vol. 9:8, August 2009.
• “Against Beneficence: A Normative Account of Love,” Ethics vol. 119:1, October 2008, 142-170.