Research

My primary research interests are in social, political, and moral philosophy, particularly just war theory. Currently, I am examining when and why states have the right to defend themselves and others with war, and I’m also working to answer applied ethics questions regarding moral responsibility and liability in war and international conflict: who can be legitimately targeted during wars and conflicts, and why? What particular obligations, if any, are owed to people who are displaced by war and international conflict?

I also have long-standing interests in medieval and early modern philosophy. I am currently working on a project that argues that Saint Anselm’s philosophically-oriented theology provides a plausible response to modern-day critiques that hold that religious faith is incompatible with critical thinking.

Regarding future projects, I am interested in researching political, legal, and ethical questions surrounding state-building during and after war. Much has been written recently at the theoretical level about the necessary and sufficient conditions for the creation of a just peace, but rarely do philosophers dive into the particular political, legal, and ethical questions of state-building at a more concrete level. Given what now appear to be long-term state-building projects around the globe (Iraq, Afghanistan, and perhaps Syria), it is important to consider the politics and ethics of state-building, and whether normative constraints on state-building impact how counter-insurgency wars, in particular, ought to be fought.

In addition, I want to explore the role of imagination in political and ethical theory. Moral and political theorists often ask their readers to imagine what they would do in a given scenario, and then use those intuitions to further their arguments. But why should we accept that our imagined responses to imagined scenarios give us insight into highly abstract, general ethical and political principles? Finally, I am interested in understanding the ways in which feminism and philosophy of race have changed the modern moral and political philosophical dialogue.

Publications

  • (2018) “Humanitarian Intervention and the Problem of Genocide and Atrocity,”Routledge Handbook of Pacifism and Nonviolence, edited by Andrew Fiala, New York: Routledge.
  • ​(2016) “Who Owes What to War Refugees,” Journal of Global Ethics 12 (3): 327-346.

Works in Progress

Dissertation Abstract

“The State Right of Self-Defense: A Claim in Need of Justification”

The cornerstone of contemporary just war theory is the claim that states have rights of self-defense that sometimes justify going to war. Just war theorists tend to appeal to the so-called domestic analogy (the idea that individuals and states are relevantly similar) to justify this claim; just as individuals have rights of self-defense that sometimes justify otherwise impermissible actions, they say, so too do states. There are a number of intuitive, persuasive ways of cashing out this analogical argument; nevertheless, I argue that all of them fail to justify the claim that states have rights of self-defense that sometimes justify going to war. I then provide a new argument, not based on the domestic analogy, for the conclusion that at least some states have rights of self-defense. States have rights of self-defense that sometimes justify going to war, I argue, only when they appropriately fulfill their primary role, namely the protection of the individuals within them. This understanding of what it takes for a state to have rights of self-defense, I conclude, gives rise to a revisionary understanding of just war theory.