Research
Research
A paper on Salience Biases and Sexual History Evidence
In this paper, I identify a systemic constraint in the processes of evidence evaluation in criminal investigations of rape. Building on the story-model of processes of judicial decision-making, I identify a salience bias mechanism that distorts how evidential interpretative possibilities -or stories- are rendered available to fact-finders. I argue that some plausible stories about sexual consent may not even enter the deliberative space of fact-finders - not because they are disbelieved or false, but simply because they are systematically not constructed. Consequently, the rational assessment of evidence in rape investigations is disrupted upfront - some explanatory possibilities may remain invisible, and with them, conditions for justified belief. I illustrate this error by considering the evaluation of sexual history evidence.
This paper is under review.
A paper on Consent and Epistemic Defeaters
In this paper, I argue that sexual interactions are typically embedded in epistemic structures that contain significant defeaters to beliefs regarding the functionality of consent. This carries crucial implications for the understanding of the normative power of consent in the sexual sphere.
A paper on Feminist Men and Bad Allyship
In this paper, I propose an ideal of male allyship that is apt to overcome some epistemic limitations imposed by their dominant social positionality. I argue that men qua socially dominant group may make proper judgments about women's conditions of oppression within allyships that promote epistemic parity.
† Oxford University, Regent's Park College Force and Freedom Workshop. TBD.
† Bocconi University. Dimensions of Intentionality in the Law. TBD.
† University Vita-Salute San Raffaele. Workshop on Feminist Philosophy. TBD.
† University of Cambridge. Episteme Seminar Series. TBD
16th Conference of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy. Presenting: Defeating Sexual Consent
University of Bern. Workshop on Epistemic Advantage. Presenting: Feminist Men and Bad Allies.
2nd Michele Taruffo Girona Evidence Week. Presenting: Defeating Sexual Consent
† University of Bologna. Seminar of Analytic Philosophy. Presenting: On Ambivalent Evidence and the Question of Consent.
University of Edinburgh. Legal Theory Seminar. Presenting: The Zetetics of Rape
† Oxford University. For the love of Wissenschaft. Presenting: Failing to Inquire about Rape
Università La Sapienza di Roma. World Congress of Philosophy. Presenting: Evidence of Wrong Sex.
Oxford University. Feminist Jurisprudence 2024 Annual Workshop. Presenting: Sexual Consent and Epistemic Double Bind.
Freie Universiteit Berlin. International Conference: Commentator on Manon Garcia’s ‘The Joy of Consent’
† University of Amsterdam. Political Theory Seminar. Presenting: Against Radical Political Epistemologies (with Dr. Adrian Kreutz).
Science Po. Semaine Doctoral Intensive. Presenting: ‘An Epistemic Critique of Rape Fact Finding’
University of Oslo. Graduate Workshop on Sexist Ideologies. Presenting ‘An Epistemic Critique of Rape Fact-Finding’.
Warwick Graduate Conference in Political and Legal Theory 2023. Presenting: ‘An Epistemic Critique of Rape Fact-Finding’.
Before my PhD, I worked as a Research Consultant for Free a Girl- The Netherlands. I led research and authored a report on the Sexual Exploitation of Children in Brazil.
I also worked as a Research Consultant for EuroDirect Trapani, co-authoring a report on Environmental Politics in the EU; and as a Research Assistant for a project that resulted in a book on the electoral rules for the inclusion of women as candidates in Brazilian politics.