My research covers a number of topics in moral and political philosophy. I am mainly interested in understanding the diverse forms of normative address that we use to directly alter practical reasons for ourselves and others (e.g. promises, requests, and orders). A overarching theme of my work is that these phenomena are best theorized by attending to the valuable roles they play in forging and navigating our interpersonal relationships. This relational aspect is what makes them essential for human life.
Short descriptions of some of my projects are given below.
Wrongful Request as Abuse of Normative Power, Journal of Moral Philosophy (forthcoming)
A request can be wrongful simply in virtue the fact that it was made even if it causes no ordinary harm. In such cases, one abuses the normative power to request which communicates, or expresses, a distinctive kind of disregard for the requestee and their interests, ones which themselves ground and limit the power.
Political Obligation & Political Recognition, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy (2025)
Citizens of a liberal polity have duties to obey the law qua law because such obedience is an obligatory way of expressing recognition of one’s fellow citizens as free and equal moral members of the community.
Begging & Power, Philosophical Studies (2024)
A paradigmatic kind of begging involves communicating one’s relative powerlessness as a means of motivating another to act. This kind of begging is bad when and because either (i) the underlying power asymmetry is bad for the beggar and gives the act an additional symbolic meaning, or (ii) the act precludes the parties from interacting in ways they have reasons to care about.
Unforgivable Wrongs
Requests, Orders, and Liberty
The fundamental difference between requests and orders is that the latter make us deliberatively unfree insofar as it’s rationally impermissible to decide whether to follow an order based on one’s own ordinary practical judgments. This makes orders pro tanto objectionable in a way that other obligation-imposing forms of address are not.
The Expressive Value of Petitionary Prayer
It is sometimes argued that petitionary prayer is incoherent or valueless if God has certain attributes (e.g. immutability, impassibility, omniscience). I argue that this claim is false because petitionary prayer, when properly performed, expressed the value one ascribes to their relationship with God. This also helps explain what’s problematic about praying that God perform evil actions such as killing your business rival even if there’s no chance that God would grant this request.