Research

My work explores the moral complexity of human relationships, from the intimate to the impersonal. As social beings, we continually shape—and are shaped by—our interactions with others. I examine how the human tendency to influence others’ thoughts, feelings, and motivations operates within our relationships and social practices. How does this capacity to affect others contribute to the realization of important goods? And when does it overreach, becoming morally problematic?

I pursue these questions from both contemporary and cross-cultural perspectives. Topics I have written on include gratitude, blame, disgust, rational persuasion, paternalism, exploitation, obligation, friendship, faith, global justice, the ethics of taxation, the symbolic power of the state, and modern liberalism.

Publications:

“Debts of Gratitude in Cross-Cultural Perspective: Confucian and Western Ethics,” (with Lok Chui Choo), Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol 42, no. 1 (2025) 

Examines the contrasting conceptions of gratitude in Early Confucian and Western philosophy, focusing on a key difference: the presence of the notion of ‘debts of gratitude’ in Western thought and its absence in Confucianism. Explores how this difference is rooted in contrasting ethical values. Concludes by noting that some contemporary Western philosophers discuss gratitude in collaborative contexts in ways that align with Confucian ideas, suggesting shared elements between Confucian and Western ethical outlooks.

“Are Ethical Explanations Explanatory?” (with Casey Lewry and Tania Lombrozo), Cognition, Vol. 250 (2024)

Why were women given the right to vote? “Because it is morally wrong to deny women the right to vote.” This explanation does not seem to fit the typical pattern for explaining an event: rather than citing a cause, it appeals to an ethical claim. Do people judge ethical claims to be genuinely explanatory? And if so, why? In three studies, we demonstrate that our beliefs about the nature of morality shape our judgments of explanations and that explanations shape our inferences about others’ moral commitments.

“Exploitation and Friendship,” Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Friendship, ed. Diane Jeske (2023)

Examines the nature of friendship and the nature of exploitation, and the intersection of the two phenomena. Argues that because vulnerability is an essential aspect of friendship, the possibility of exploitation is ineliminable in friendship. Considers how we might, nonetheless, reduce our exposure to unfair treatment in friendships.

“Review: Doing What You Really Want,” Journal of Moral Philosophy, Vol. 20 (2023)

Comments on Franklin Perkins' Doing What You Really Want: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Mengzi. Raises questions related to two main themes in the book: (1) Mengzi’s conception of human nature, and (2) Mengzi’s view of harmony and conflict in human life.

“Conversational Disgust and Social Oppression,” Journal of Chinese Philosophy, Special Forum Series on 'Walls and Co-Existence', Vol. 48, no. 2 (2021)

Examines the role played by emotions in constituting and sustaining oppressive social hierarchies. Argues, in particular, that linguistic expressions of disgust can activate in the local, conversational context the morally problematic pressures of underlying structures of oppression. Through the dynamic of accommodation, conversational expressions of disgust often lead to cases of objectionable disgust contagion. 

“Gratitude and the Common Good,” The Gift and the Common Good: An Intercultural Perspective, ed. Walter Schweidler & Joachim Klose, Nomos-Verlag Akademia (2020) 

Argues that gratitude has a central place in the early Confucian tradition, but the notion of debt of gratitude is virtually absent. By contrast, several historical and contemporary philosophers in the West discuss the notion of duty of gratitude. Explores some respects in which social relations are differently conceived and experienced in social worlds with and without the notion of duty of gratitude.   

“Anticipating Global Justice: Confucianism and Mohism in Classical China,” Global Justice in East Asia, ed. Hugo El Kholi & Jun-Kyeok Kwak, Routledge (2019)

Argues that debates between the Confucians and Mohists in Early China about our responsibilities to other people anticipate contemporary discussions in political philosophy (by Rawlsians, Cosmopolitans, and Utilitarians). More specifically, aspects of the debates between the Confucians and Mohists are akin to contemporary discussions about the nature of our political obligations to others near and far, as well as the proper scope of application of norms of justice.

“Agency and Deed in Confucian Thought,” Philosophy East and West, Vol. 69, no. 2 (2019)

Develops a Confucian account of agency: an account of the relation between agent and deed. Distinguishes the Confucian picture with "standard" causal accounts of action (e.g., Davidson, Searle), which hold that what makes an event an action is that it is intended. According to the Confucian account, the defining mark of action is not the causal involvement of a (prior) intention, but instead the expressive relation between agent and action. What's distinctive about an action is that it expresses the agent's character or self: who the agent is.  Explores what the Confucian account implies regarding weakness of will, self-deception, and moral regret. 

“The Virtue of Being Supportive,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, Vol. 99, no. 2 (2018)

Develops an account of the virtue of being supportive as a modally demanding value. Argues that the virtue furthers the autonomy of the supported person, and promotes a sense of unity in relationships like love and friendship. Explains how the practice of being supportive plays a crucial role with regard to the familiar challenge of reconciling potential conflicts between the normative demands of one’s own projects and one’s responsibilities to loved ones.

“Paternalism and Intimate Relationships,” The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy of Paternalism, ed. Kalle Grill & Jason Hanna, Routledge (2018)

Argues that participation in an intimate relationship can generate additional or stronger reasons for one to act paternalistically toward the intimate. Moreover, participation in such a relationship can also weaken or cancel some of the presumptive reasons of respect one would otherwise have not to interfere. Reflects, more generally, on the nature of intimate relationships, the normative significance of paternalism, and the normative differences between paternalism in larger-scale institutional and paternalism in closer, interpersonal contexts.

“Respect and the Efficacy of Blame,” Oxford Studies in Agency & Responsibility, Vol. 4, ed. David Shoemaker (2017)

Examines the role of respect (specifically, the interest in maintaining other people's respect) in enabling blame to be effective: i.e., to achieve the desired effect of changing the blamed’s attitude and behavior. Develops an account of blame’s operations in three different cases: standard, intermediate, and proleptic. Raises the worry that effective blame toward the morally distant approximates manipulation and coercion, leaving a moral residue.

“Supporting Intimates on Faith,” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, Vol. 81 (2017)

Addresses the role of (secular) faith in the practice of supporting friends and loved ones in their personal projects. Discussion draws on Lara Buchak’s account of faith as a non-doxastic, risk-taking attitude, and Philip Pettit’s notion of “modally demanding value." Argues that faith-based support can play an important role in enabling the autonomy of the supported person and promoting solidarity in the relationship.

“Tax Ethics” (with Geoffrey Brennan), in A Companion to Applied Philosophy, eds. K. Lippert-Rasmussen, K. Brownlee, & D. Coady, Wiley-Blackwell (2016)

Examines two fundamental questions concerning the normative significance of taxation: (1) What tax arrangements should a state or society put into place? (2) How should a citizen or taxpayer relate to an existing system? The examination engages critically with the broadly Rawlsian view of taxation advanced by Liam Murphy and Thomas Nagel in The Myth of Ownership.

“Vulnerability in Intimate Relationships,” Southern Journal of Philosophy, Spindel Supplement: 'Exploitation', Vol. 54 (2016)

Argues that valuable intimate relationships (e.g., love and friendship) involve vulnerability essentially, and that the distinctive vulnerability connected with participation in intimate relationships presents opportunities for wrongful exploitation that can at most be mitigated, not eliminated.

“The Morality of State Symbolic Power,” Social Theory and Practice, Special Issue on 'Dominating Speech', Vol. 42, no. 2 (2016)

Examines the state’s capacity to use symbols (e.g., monuments, memorials, holidays, street names) to promote political values. Argues that this expressive power is in need of special justification, given the likelihood of its use by the state to influence citizens’ political values in ways that circumvent their rational capacities. Explores the idea that the state's deployment of symbolic resources is nevertheless permissible when surrounded by certain liberal institutions and a result of democratic procedures.

“Rational Persuasion as Paternalism,” Philosophy and Public Affairs, Vol. 42, no. 1 (2014)

Argues that rationally persuading another to do something for their own good is sometimes (objectionably) paternalistic. Rational persuasion may express, and be guided by, the motive of distrust in the other’s capacity to gather or weigh evidence, and may intrude on the other’s deliberative activities in ways that conflict with respecting their agency and autonomy. Examines factors that make a difference to whether (and when) the provision of reasons is respectful.

“Exploring Meta-Ethical Commitments: Moral Objectivity and Moral Progress,” (with Tania Lombrozo and Kevin Uttich), in Advances in Experimental Moral Psychology, eds. H. Sarkissian & J. Cole Wright, Bloomsbury Press (2014)

Presents the results of our study comparing two different approaches (those of Goodwin and Darley 2008, and Sarkissian et al. 2011) to empirically measuring people's belief in moral objectivity. Examines the relationship between belief in moral objectivity and two other metaethical attitudes: belief in moral progress and belief in a just world.

“An Error Theory for Liberal Universalism,” Journal of Political Philosophy, Vol. 21, no. 3 (2013)

Addresses Bernard Williams’ challenge to liberal universalists (liberals “who assume their morality is universally applicable to everyone”) to provide a theory of error: “a story about the subject matter of political morality and about past people’s situation which explains why those people got it wrong about the subject matter.” Develops a theory of error that appeals to socio-historical conditions of the past to explain their role in making (1) liberal values and reasons epistemically inaccessible, and (2) motivations to live up to them unavailable.

“Lamentable Necessities,” Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 66, no. 4 (2013)

Explores the normative implications of the possibility and likelihood that modern liberalism would not have come into existence but for the occurrence of certain large-scale historical injustices (such as slavery in Ancient Greece, absolutist monarchy in pre-modern Europe, and the European conquest of the New World). Considers how - given that possibility and likelihood - those who greatly value modern liberalism ought to retrospectively and morally evaluate the relevant historical injustices.

Online Video:

“Blame's Efficacy and the Moral Community,” 11th East-West Philosophers' Conference, May 2016