My research in moral theory focuses on a core tension in contemporary ethics: morality is supposed to be about what one person owes to another, but it’s also about taking everyone into account. I explore various forms of this tension between the interpersonal and the universal across various moral theories, including contractualism, rule consequentialism, and Kantianism. More broadly, I’m interested in the structure of normative theories and the various roles that rules or principles play in them. My work in progress also includes new work on the ethics of artificial intelligence: a book chapter on how AI might undermine our communicate practices and the normative powers that depend on them, and a paper on how AI might affect our ability to lead meaningful lives.

Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics (forthcoming)

Who is wronged by a wrongful act? Contractualists have tried (and failed) to answer this question by pointing to the person who could reasonably reject principles permitting the act. I suggest that the question could be better answered by building wronging into the contractualist principles themselves: perhaps the principle that no one could reasonably reject should not be (e.g.) “Promise-breaking is forbidden,” but rather “Promise-breaking wrongs the promisee.”

Oxford Studies in Metaethics (forthcoming) (preprint)

A recent puzzle in metaethics concerns how particular moral facts could be explained by general moral principles. I explore whether this puzzle can be solved by appealing to the explanatory role that principles play in normative ethical theories like contractualism and rule-consequentialism.

Philosophical Quarterly (2025) (preprint)

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) (preprint)

Contractualists and rule consequentialists evaluate candidate moral rules by imagining that everyone accepts them. Should they do so under the realistic assumption that those who accept the rules will sometimes misapply them? I argue that they must—but if they do, they’ll often miss the moral significance of facts about how we treat particular individuals.

committed to AI and the Problem of Responsibility, ed. Buccella and Kehlenbach (under contract)

under review