General Interests
My main research interests are in ethics and philosophy of religion. In ethics broadly construed, I'm particularly interested in virtue ethics, virtue theory, philosophical and moral psychology, and the philosophy of emotions. In the philosophy of religion, I'm particularly interested in the problem of evil.
My research for the Intellectual Humility Project has two main phases. The first focuses on the nature of intellectual humility and its opposing vices. The second focuses on the virtues of intellectual courage and, perhaps surprisingly, intellectual magnanimity that, I argue, are closely tied to intellectual humility, coordinate with humility for the pursuit of epistemic goods, and help reveal the emotional excellences such humility requires. To accomplish these tasks I utilize the work of Aquinas on humility and related virtues and vices and recent work by contemporary epistemologists and moral psychologists with sensitivity to relevant empirical work in social psychology.
I am engaging or plan to engage issues such as the adequacy of a general distinction between natural virtue, continence, and genuine virtue, the nature of the motivational unity that virtue requires, the role of willpower in virtue acquisition, the superiority of an Aristotelian account of pleasure, and the nature of love and the self-centeredness objection to virtue ethics.
Follow the above link for.pdf versions of some of my papers. For citations and other information, follow the below link to Philpapers: