Research

You can find pdfs of many of my articles on academia.edu, researchgate, or philpapers. Links below. If you would like a copy of a publication that is missing from those sites, feel free to send me an email - mpriest2@asu.edu

https://philpeople.org/profiles/maura-priest

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maura_Priest

https://asu.academia.edu/MauraPriest

I am currently working on a book for Routledge, Can we Trust Elites? (part of their Focus series). In the book, I argue for a novel conception of what it means to be part of the so-called elite class. Spoiler: it is not primarily about education, nor about income level. I then consider whether the "ordinary folk" are justified in their mistrust of these elites. Spoiler: in some ways yes, and in other ways, not really. Lastly, I explore what responsibilities the elites have to the non-elites, and what might be done to gain their trust. Short story is the elites could be doing much better than they are, and misunderstandings and false beliefs have a lot to do with the way elites communicate to non-elites.

You can read more about my book proposal here.

Speaking of my research more generally, I have a wide range of research interests, but I try to separate things into three different specialities. I do medical ethics with a special emphasis on disability, disability and mental health, pediatric issues, and the interaction of these. Relatedly, I work on various problems in normative and applied ethics, especially those related to group behavior and collective action. That said, any topic involving normative or applied ethics is on the table. I got into this business because of my life-long unusual concern for how we ought to live. Moreover, I work in virtue theory, both ethics and epistemology - but I am especially interested in problems of social epistemology, i.e. how virtue influences the way we acquire and share knowledge interpersonally.

My work often has an interdisciplinary bent to it, mostly psychology and medicine, but also political science, economics, sociology, law, and history. My favorite part of philosophy is engaging with other scholars, so feel free to contact me if something catches your interest.

My future projects include a number of articles on epistemic vice, a couple of articles on the ethics of public discussion, two bioethics projects (one will likely be a book): the first on parental power in medicine, the second on psychiatric harm in medicine, and two potential books projects: (1) On Good and Bad People, and (2) Ethics, Dating, and Public Health.