My research interests all concern moral learning and political transformation. I am motivated by the following question: how can we get others, and ourselves, to value overcoming injustice? That is, to more properly see and feel the appeal of living in a society of equals?

You can view my dissertation here.

Publications

Trusting Apologies (with Per-Erik Milam), forthcoming in B. Matheson, & A. Edlich (Eds.), The Nature and Ethics of Apology Edited Collection. Oxford University Press.

Under Review

  • A paper on vindictive anger. Under Review. Email me for a draft. (I discuss this paper on NPR, you can listen here)

  • A paper on moral progress and bad sex. Under Review. Email me for a draft.

In Production

Two papers on apologies:

  • Sorry to Bother You: An Empathy-Based Approach to Apologies. Philosophers have traditionally held that apologies require an admission of blameworthiness —to apologize just is to acknowledge wrongdoing. However, people frequently apologize for blameless actions, such as a parent who apologizes for their newborn’s inconsolable crying on a long-haul flight or someone who apologizes for accidentally spilling red wine on their colleague’s white blouse. I argue that such “blameless apologies” are intelligible and meaningful not because they communicate that the apologizer understands their hurtful action to be wrongful, but because they recognize that the action warrants empathy. When we engage in empathy, we undergo a process of imaginative perspective-taking – we attempt to see and feel things as another does. And so, on my view, blameless apologies mean: I put myself in your shoes, I see things as you do, and I share in your pain. This account explains why blameless apologies can be sincere and meaningful, even when no moral fault is involved, while at the same time shedding light on the moral significance of empathy.

  • Blameless Apologies and the Difficulties of Morality. Sometimes we issue blameless apologies—apologies for things we are not, strictly speaking, blameworthy for. Imagine offering well-meaning but clumsy comfort to a grieving friend, making them feel worse. Or imagine accidentally transmitting COVID to a newborn infant. One can readily imagine apologizing in these situations of inadvertent harm. In this paper, I’m interested in exploring the strangeness — and in particular, the  awkwardness — of these apologies. These apologies feel awkward, not only because the situations themselves are uncomfortable, but because the apologies themselves introduce a distinctive kind of awkwardness. In this paper, I examine how and why blameless apologies generate awkwardness. I argue that this awkwardness is not accidental but philosophically revealing: it reflects a lived recognition of the difficulty and complexity of morality’s demands.

Two papers on pornography and AI:

  • When Porn Doesn’t Speak. (with Michael Randall Barnes, Oslo). Radical feminist critiques of pornography have long emphasized its subordinating force, but these arguments face a persistent authority problem: who, exactly, has the authority to subordinate through porn? While defenders reply that pornography is “the only game in town” for sex education, the rise of new technologies—especially user-generated and consumer-driven forms—makes the authority problem even more vivid. These technologies not only lack discrete speakers but also reveal that the authority problem was always present, given the amorphousness of “Big Porn.” If constitutive subordination arguments collapse under this weight, radical feminism must look elsewhere. We consider paths forward: shifting toward collective responsibility models, reframing regulation around causal harms or imminent threats, treating the authority problem as a reductio of First Amendment jurisprudence, or developing virtue-theoretic and egalitarian critiques of pornography’s role in shaping character and democracy. Our aim is not to abandon radical feminism, but to chart its next phase in light of a problem that new technologies make impossible to ignore.

  • Mapping the Landscape of AI-Assisted Sex Work. (with Michael Randall Barnes, Oslo), commissioned by Phil Compass; Pornography and sex work are ‘real-world settings’ that often function as leading indicators for how technology will integrate into broader society. While AI itself is poised to destabilize and revolutionize everything from how we work to how we play, the pornography industry is once again set to guide that development in unexpected ways. Take as an example NSFW (Not Safe For Work)-chatbots. These bots often conceal their status as AI—e.g., when OnlyFans creators use bots to interact with their fans—raising novel ethical questions. We propose to investigate and uncover the ethical concerns raised by this and related types of AI-assisted sex work, and explore how this technological development upends existing debates concerning pornography and sex work. Moreover, we maintain the lessons learnt from this research will apply outside of sex work—for example, for AI Companions more broadly, and to the automation of 'unseen' labor in other industries.