Publications
Publications
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Academic publications:
‘Aristotelian Feminism and Thumos: A Thomistic Perspective’. New Blackfriars, forthcoming. A previous online version was retracted.
Retracted version: https://doi.org/10.1017/nbf.2025.10071.
Retraction notice: https://doi.org/10.1017/nbf.2025.10115.
‘Physical Defects and Divine Order: Augustine, Aquinas, and Approximative Goodness’. New Blackfriars, First View, 2026, pp. 1-14.
‘Physical Defects and Divine Order: Augustine, Aquinas, and Approximative Goodness’. New Blackfriars, First View, 2026, pp. 1-14.
This article examines whether Thomism can account for the goodness of physical deformity without treating bodily defect as a loss of dignity. It compares Augustine’s stronger Platonist account of creation, in which defects remain diminished likenesses within an intelligible divine order, with Aquinas’s account of divine ideas, providence, natural potency, and goodness. The article argues that physical deformity can be understood as a mixed case of “goodness by approximation”. On this view, atypical cases may have an epistemic role: by removing misleading accompaniments, they can help clarify a universal ratio and make what belongs per se more evident.
‘Augustinian Traces in Louis XVI’. History of European Ideas, 2026.
‘Augustinian Traces in Louis XVI’. History of European Ideas, 2026.
This article argues that Louis XVI’s student notes, the Réflexions sur mes Entretiens avec M. le duc de la Vauguyon, contain a coherent Augustinian Platonist ethics derived from Fénelon. It challenges readings that sharply separate Louis’ reformist commitments from his attachment to sacral monarchy, and proposes that the same philosophical framework can illuminate parts of his reign. The article reconstructs the Dauphin’s education under La Vauguyon, Moreau, and Berthier, then analyses key passages on God, natural law, and humanité. It argues that apparent tensions in the notes are resolved by reading humanité as a participated reflection of a divine idea of human nature.
Accepted Manuscript:
Augustinian Traces in Louis XVI anonymous.docxNon-academic publications:
Ends Before Rights
Bedrock Magazine, Issue 5, March 2026.
This essay contrasts an older teleological account of ethics with a modern rights-first account. Beginning from the example of Louis IX personally hearing petitions, it argues that moral judgement should attend to the ends proper to roles, persons, and institutions. It presents the older outlook as one in which ends generate duties, and duties in turn shape rights. It then contrasts this with modern anti-perfectionist theories associated with Hobbes, Locke, Mill, and Kant, where morality is framed chiefly around individual choice and non-interference.
Tradition and Reaction
Bedrock Magazine, Issue 6, June 2026.
An essay on how robust traditionalism in society and politics requires belief in transcendence (Platonism), while reactionary thought is implicitly naturalistic in outlook.
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