My research in moral and social philosophy focuses on rules or principles: the roles they play in moral explanations, in our deliberations, in our social practices, and the interrelations between these. Much of this work aims to bridge the gap between theoretical discussion of these topics and the messiness of our use of rules and principles in real life, from our propensity to misapply principles to our reliance on imperfect rules that are merely “good enough.”

My work in progress includes new work on the ethics of artificial intelligence: a paper on how AI might affect our ability to lead meaningful lives, and a paper on the limits of our ability to build moral AI.

Philosophical Quarterly (early view)

I argue that an act can be wrong because it wrongs a particular person. I then show how this thesis serves as a constraint on moral theories, using Kantian ethics as a case study. In particular, I argue that this thesis makes trouble for theories that ground right and wrong in facts about the universalizability of principles.

Noûs (2024)

Contractualists and rule consequentialists evaluate candidate moral rules by imagining their general acceptance. Should they do so under the realistic assumption that those who accept the rules will sometimes misapply them? I show that either answer gets these theories into hot water.

under review

draft available