Research
Publications
2024. Eliciting and Assessing our Moral Risk Preferences. American Philosophical Quarterly. [Published version]
2023. Against Metasemantics-First Moral Epistemology. (Coauthored with Jesse Hambly) Journal of Ethics. [Published version][Philpapers PDF]
2023. A disanalogy with RCTs and its implications for second-generation causal knowledge. (Coauthored with Kate Lynch, Rachael Brown, Jeremy Strasser – I am last author) Behavioral and Brain Sciences. [Published version][PsyArXiv PDF]
2022. A Bayesian Analysis of Debunking Arguments in Ethics. Philosophical Studies. [Published version][Philpapers PDF]
2020. Defusing the Regress Challenge to Debunking Arguments. Canadian Journal of Philosophy, 50(6), 785-800. [Published version] [Philpapers PDF]
2017. Measuring the Consequences of Rules: A Reply to Smith. Utilitas, 29(1), 125-131. [Published version] [Philpapers PDF]
Works in Progress
- A paper on the ethics of nudging
- A paper on reflective equilibrium
- A paper on the political philosophy of attention
- A coauthored paper on standpoint epistemology
- A coauthored paper on prospect-theoretic reference points
PhD Thesis: The Scope and Limits of Debunking Arguments in Ethics
Debunking arguments use empirical evidence about the causal origins of our moral beliefs in order to reach an epistemic conclusion about the trustworthiness of such beliefs. In this thesis, I investigate the scope and limits of debunking arguments, and their implications for what we should believe about morality. I argue that debunking arguments can in principle work – they are based on plausible epistemic premises, and at least some of them avoid putative problems concerning regress and redundancy. However, I also argue that some debunking arguments fall short because they are insufficiently supported by the empirical evidence. By considering different objections, analyses, and a case study, I explore when – and how – such arguments work.
Supervisory Panel: Christian Barry (chair), Alan Hájek, Katie Steele, Kim Sterelny