Research

Research Interests

My research examines the rights and responsibilities that exist within familial relationships and how additional considerations (such as conflicting obligations stemming from social justice goals the individuals themselves endorse) expand or limit these rights and responsibilities.

Recently, I have focused on the obligations grown children have to care for ageing parents (or other caregivers), what parents should consider when choosing a school for their child (e.g., whether it is permissible to send a child to a private school or even to use school choice mechanisms if a child’s school is failing), and how our selection of children’s books might contribute to or help address implicit racial bias and thus systemic racism. In each case, the concern has been the intersection of decisions once thought to be private family decisions and broad social justice considerations.

I am currently co-writing on a paper with Dr. Shelley Koch, a professor of sociology at Emory & Henry College, in which we argue that the way these debates are sometimes framed might exacerbate rather than alleviate systemic injustices. For instance, in the case of my own paper on children’s literature, I address the problem of the pervasive whiteness of children’s literature by appealing to consumer obligations; however, most consumers of children’s books are women, so this obligation disproportionately affects women. Although that fact needn’t undermine the force of the obligation, when combined with other obligations that are disproportionately discharged by women – such as obligations to care for children or ageing parents, or the more modest obligation to refrain from consuming factory-farmed meat – this consumer-based approach to ethical problems can contribute to and exacerbate the gendering of moral norms. We argue that in addition to well-known problems with consumer ethics (e.g., the “myth of the ethical consumer”), approaches to social problems that impose obligations on those with the least power – both in the decision-making process and, more broadly speaking, in society – are deeply flawed, and these issues would perhaps best be addressed by focusing on the obligations of those more upstream in the decision-making process.

Given both my academic and personal interest in diversity in literature, I continue to research best practices for curriculum reform to work toward a more diverse and inclusive syllabus for each class in terms of issues discussed, authors represented, and student accessibility. In recent years, I have attended and presented at conferences addressing these pedagogical issues, and much of my campus service and teaching development is analogous to my academic research in that I examine the ways rights and responsibilities within higher education are expanded or limited by broader social justice considerations.

Going forward, I plan to develop a manuscript about the intersection of a wide range of familial decisions (whether to marry, whether to parent, educational choices, elder care, etc.) with social policy, examining the ways an individual’s choices both shape and are shaped by those social policies.

PUBLICATIONS

"The Pervasive Whiteness of Children's Literature: Collective Harms and Consumer Obligations"

Social Theory and Practice (Forthcoming: April 2016)

“Filial Obligations”

Internet Encylopedia of Philosophy (2015) ISSN 2161-0002, http://www.iep.utm.edu

"Shifting the Concept of Nudge"

Journal of Medical Ethics (2013) 39 (8), pp. 497-498.

Review: The Tyranny of Utility

Economics and Philosophy (2013) 29 (2), pp. 289-295.

"A Theory of Filial Obligations"

Social Theory and Practice (2012) 38 (4), pp. 717-737.

“To Nudge or Not to Nudge” (with Daniel M. Hausman)

Journal of Political Philosophy (2010) 18 (1) pp. 123-136.