Research

Works in Progress

“Believing Women.” When it comes to sexual harassment and assault, feminists say that we should believe women. But how should we interpret this feminist principle? In this paper, I start with a pair of apparent problems: the “wrong kind of reason” problem and the “ought implies can” problem. Then, drawing on my years of experience working on a sexual assault crisis line, I propose an interpretation of the feminist principle “believe women” that solves both problems. “Believing Women” won the 2021 Best Graduate Student Paper Award from the North American Association of Social Philosophers.

“Getting Personal: A Feminist Perspective on Philosophical Methodology.” The typical analytic philosophy paper is quite reticent about the personal: despite the use of first-personal pronouns like “I” and “me,” it reveals little about its author. In the words of Annette Baier, this impersonal style has become a “nearly sacred tradition” in moral philosophy. But is the tradition worth preserving? Drawing on traditions from feminist philosophy and critical philosophy of race, I argue that the answer is no: the impersonal tradition has proven philosophically and politically counterproductive. Instead of perpetuating the tradition, therefore, we should explore more openly personal ways of writing philosophy. In short, the personal is philosophical.

“Suicide and Paternalism.” Each year, the United States subjects thousands of people to involuntary commitment on the grounds that they “pose threats to themselves.” As a society, in other words, our standard response to suicidality is medical incarceration. This practice is a classic example of paternalism: sacrificing the liberty of others for the sake of their safety. But is it justified paternalism? To gain perspective on the ethics of suicide prevention, I draw on a wide range of historical case studies, from the suicides of Socrates and Cato to the practice of seppuku among Japanese samurai to the politically-motivated self-immolations of Vietnamese Buddhist monks. I also draw on my own experiences as an involuntary psychiatric patient.

Published Work

I’ve published six essays in The Philosopher:

“An Experiment in Co-Authorship 4: Robot Apocalypse.” In the fourth and final installment of our experimental series on co-authorship, Adam Ferner and I weave discussions of AI together with reflections on our year-long collaboration.

“An Experiment in Co-Authorship 3: For Love or Money.” In the third installment of our experimental series on co-authorship, Adam Ferner and I discuss the economics of academic labor.

“An Experiment in Co-Authorship 2: Views from Somewhere.” In the second installment of our experimental series on co-authorship, Adam Ferner and I discuss the value - and the limits - of philosophical argumentation.

“An Experiment in Co-Authorship 1.” In the first installment of our experimental series, my co-author Adam Ferner and I figure out how to navigate our new working relationship as we reflect on - and challenge - the writing norms that dominate academic philosophy.

“Can Pronouns Be Private?” In this essay, I defend the increasingly popular practice of pronoun-sharing. My friend and colleague Brian Earp worries that questions like “What are your pronouns?” are too invasive, forcing people to reveal private information about sex and/or gender identity. I propose that pronouns do not (necessarily) refer to either sex or gender identity. The question ain’t that deep.

“Testimony, Technology, and the Black Lives Matter Movement.” In this essay I examine America’s history of racist oppression through the lens of epistemic injustice. Police violence against communities of color is nothing new. So why didn’t the Black Lives Matter Movement gain traction earlier? Or later, for that matter? Why now? It might seem like BLM gained traction because we solved the problem of epistemic injustice, but I argue that this interpretation is a mistake: smartphone videos and social media allowed us to sidestep the problem.

I also co-authored a paper in the American Journal of Bioethics:

“Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs.” In this paper, I join a broad coalition of bioethicists and allied professionals calling for policymakers to legalize, or at least decriminalize, all drugs.