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. For longer descriptions, please see my current Research Statement.
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.
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.
Paper on Wrongful Requests
(submitted for publication; title omitted)
Some requests (e.g. an employer asking their employee for a backrub in the workplace) are wrongful because they involve an attempted abuse of one’s normative power to request. Such an abuse expresses an objectionable lack of regard for the requestee as a member of the background relationship that's salient in the context.
Paper on Reason-Giving Force of Requests
(submitted for publication; title omitted)
Requests give rise to reasons because the power to request is a valuable tool for conducting our interpersonal relationships on terms that realize important interests in autonomy, recognition, and equality.
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.
Forgiveness & the Meaning of Wrongdoing
Forgiveness has two valuable roles that have not been recognized, namely (i) reasserting one’s agency in the face of "dominating" wrongdoing, and (ii) ending particular relationships in light of serious wrongdoing (e.g. forgiving the perpetually unfaithful spouse).
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.
The Injustice of Anti-Begging Legislation
Many American jurisdictions have enacted legislation which criminalizes begging. Contrary to some recent caselaw, these statutes are not unjust because of free-speech concerns. Instead, their injustice is explained by how they target the homeless and poor in a way that both (i) is not rationally related to a legitimate government purpose, and (ii) adds both insult and further injury to those who already have so little and are likely to have been harmed by other failures of justice. I further argue that an important interpersonal ideal of justice dictates that the state is required to weaken peoples’ incentives to beg on the street, but anti-begging legislation is an unacceptable way of satisfying this requirement.
Love in the Time of AI
A recent media article claims that millions are using apps that provide virtual AI girlfriends that will “talk to you, love you, allow you to live out your erotic fantasies, and learn, through data, exactly what you like and don’t like, creating the ‘perfect’ relationship.” I argue that there are constitutive elements of loving human relationships that cannot occur in relationships with AI systems as they currently operate. Because of this, we should be wary about the unrestrained rise of the AI romantic partner.