My research interests all concern moral learning and political transformation. I am motivated by the following question: how can we get others, and ourselves, to value overcoming injustice? That is, to more properly see and feel the appeal of living in a society of equals?
You can view my dissertation here.
Works in Progress
A paper on vindictive anger. Under Review. Email me for a draft. (I discussed this paper on NPR, listen here!)
A paper on moral progress and bad sex. Under Review. Email me for a draft.
“Trusting Apologies” (with Per-Erik Milam), promised to B. Matheson, & A. Edlich (Eds.), The Nature and Ethics of Apology Edited Collection. Oxford University Press.
“Feminism and Suspect Femininity” Email me for a draft.
In this paper, I ask how we should feel towards women who conform to suspect norms of appearance. Procedures that help women approximate the feminine ideal, such as invasive cosmetic surgeries or Botox are two such examples. I present a novel type of empathy, which I call proleptic empathy, which avoids treating women as either pitiful victims or as accomplices in their own oppression. Proleptic empathy is a technique for understanding, and feeling towards, those whose very identities can be said to be suspect, that nevertheless treats them with the epistemic humility that their situation calls for. It requires switching back and forth between two types of imaginings: on the one hand, simulating what it is like to be in the woman’s shoes on the assumption that her suspect behavior stems from her will. On the other, simulating what it is like to be in the woman’s shoes on the assumption that her suspect behavior stems from external cultural influences. This mode of empathizing respects those who conform to suspect norms because it presupposes, and thus signals, that their agency is structured by conditions outside of their control but also by themselves. In so doing, it opens up new possibilities for responsible agency, which itself serves liberatory aims.
“Violence and Emancipatory Politics” Email me for a draft.
The goal of this paper is to explore the role that education and violence play in emancipation. By way of referring to Frederick Douglass’s biographical accounts, I hope to show that the two, education and violence, are more closely related than one might have antecedently thought. In particular, both education and violence can function as what I call modes of emancipation. By this, I mean that there are cases in which education and violence can serve similar functions; namely, the function of assisting particular individuals, in particular contexts, in their fight for freedom.