My publications are listed here and talks & presentations, here.
My primary research interests are moral responsibility, autonomy, moral autonomy, the social and legal practices associated with each, as well as their relationship with data technologies (especially AI and social robotics). I am also deeply interested in related issues like moral worth, moral motivation, and moral testimony. I have several papers and one book project in the pipeline. The book expands on the theory of moral autonomy I developed in my dissertation. I am in the planning phase for a book project in the ethics of AI, about the impact of Generative AI specifically.
In all my work, I contend with questions about authenticity and autonomy and the importance of intrinsic motivation to these concepts. According to my research thus far, our social practices and institutions exploit our susceptibility to extrinsic motivators and largely undermine our autonomy.
I am particularly interested in what it would take for machines to be moral and on the effects of AI on our notions of value and meaning and on our social and legal practices. I also continue my work on moral responsibility (and related issues like authorship and merit) in technologically advanced contexts. Interestingly, because of my research on philosophical theories of moral responsibility, I am increasingly eager to reorient the responsibility discussion in AI contexts in a more down-to-earth, practical direction.
My dissertation, entitled "From Moral Influence to Moral Autonomy: Responsibility Reconsidered," offers a novel way of looking at responsible agency - as something less demanding than it is traditionally viewed. It identifies the thing we're really after - moral autonomy - as something connected to yet distinct from responsibility. I am interested in further developing the notion of moral autonomy presented in the dissertation as well as exploring implications of the account of responsibility developed therein.