Education 

PhD, Georgetown, 2004

Research Interests 

I write, teach, and talk about questions in ethics, social and poitical philosophy, and metaphilosophy. In ethics, my work has been on a variety of issues, from theoretical questions regarding aggregation in normative moral theory to more everyday topics such as love, regret, offensiveness, and technology. In political philosophy my focus has been on matters related to how idealized political philosophy should be, as well as governmental and non-governmental political agency.

My current research is on the personal and social value of disagreement.

Selected Publications

• "Non-Identity Matters, Sometimes". Utilitas 26(1). 2014.
• "The Practicality of Political Philosophy". Social Philosophy and Policy 30(1-2). 2013.
• “How Lives Measure Up” (w/ M. Gardner). Acta Analytica 28(1). 2013.
• "Science, Expertise, and Democracy" (w/ K. Elliott). Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal 22(2). 2012.
• “Is Government Supererogation Possible?” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 92(2). 2011.
• “Norms and the Agency of Justice”. Analyse & Kritik 31(2). 2009.

Regularly Taught Courses

• Philosophy and the Future (PHIL 103)
• Contemporary Moral Problems (PHIL 211)
• Communicating Moral Problems (PHIL 213)
• Ethics (PHIL 320)
• Philosophy of Disagreement (PHIL 370)
• Ethical Theory (PHIL 514)
• Virtues, Acts, and Consequences (PHIL 527)
• Contemporary Political Philosophy (PHIL 735)
• Metaphilosophy (PHIL 760)
• Teaching Philosophy/Philosophy as a Profession (PHIL 790)

Blogs 

• I'm the editor of Daily Nous, a news and discussion site for matters related to academic philosophy.
• I also occasionally post at my own personal blog, Disagree.

Videos, Podcasts and other Public Philosophy 

You can learn more about my background and views in an interview with me on the web site "What is it like to be a philosopher?" My thoughts about the value of philosophical questioning are discussed here. I talk about the value of philosophy more generally during my appearance on the Brain in a Vat podcast, and the importance of disagreement during a visit to The Stoa, as well as in a brief talk over Instagram hosted by the University of South Carolina Libraries.