For a complete list of publications and talks, please see my C.V.
My research interests are eclectic. An overarching theme among them, however, is ethics. I think of myself as an ethicist.
I began my career fascinated by Emmanuel Levinas’s ideas about ethical responsibility. Levinas was a European Jew who, after the Holocaust, developed an “ethical metaphysics”—a comprehensive philosophy grounded in the conviction that nothing is more central to our lives than responding compassionately to human suffering and vulnerability. My book, Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics, defends him from critics who claim that his understanding of responsibility is too unspecifiable to serve as the basis of any useful, practical ethical theory. Other articles of mine on Levinas have appeared in The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy, International Journal of Philosophical Studies, and in The Oxford Handbook of Levinas .
My interests have since shifted. I now write mainly about puzzles in bioethics, particularly those raised by the beginnings of life: reproduction, parenthood, genetic testing and genetic modification, fertility medicine, and abortion. I have published articles on these topics in such journals as Bioethics, Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics, The Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, The New Bioethics, and in the book, Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering.
I also recently began a new research line, one in which I am interested in the defensibility of extremely pessimistic outlooks in ethics and in philosophy more generally.
Selected Writings (Bioethics)
“Surplus Embryos and Abortion,” Social Theory (online first, April 2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/soctheorpract2023425192
“The Flaw in Formalist Accounts of Circumvention Tourism,” Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics (2022) 50(3): 551-562.
“The ethical indefensibility of heartbeat bills,” Bioethics 36: 858-864.
“Procreative Responsibilities and the Parental Obligation Objection,” Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics (2022) 43: 111-125 .
“Why Inconsistency Arguments Matter,” The New Bioethics (2022) 28(1): 40-53.
“Regulating assisted reproduction: Discrimination and the right to privacy,” Clinical Ethics (2019) 14(2): 87-93.
“Selecting for Disabilities: Selection Versus Modification,” The New Bioethics (2018) 24(1): 44-56.
“What Do Gestational Mothers Deserve?” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2016) 19(4): 1031-1045.
“Why Don’t Philosophers Tell Their Mothers’ Stories?” In Philosophical Inquiries into Pregnancy Childbirth and Mothering, edited by Sheila Lintott and Maureen Sander-Staudt (Routledge, 2011).
Selected Writings (Pessimism)
“An Error Theory for Misanthropy,” Journal of Philosophical Research (online first, April 2023). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/jpr2023414207
“Is It a Wonderful Life? Frank Capra and Objective List Theories of Worth,” Film-Philosophy (2023) 27(2): 240-261.
“Must Pessimists Be Suicidal?” Journal of Value Inquiry (online first, 2022) DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10790-021-09880-4.
Selected Writings (Levinas)
“Justice in Emmanuel Levinas and John Rawls,” International Journal of Philosophical Studies (2020) 28(4): 471-487.
“Levinas on War and Peace,” The Oxford Handbook of Levinas, edited by Michael Morgan (Oxford University Press).
“Is Levinas’s Philosophy a Response to the Holocaust?” The Journal of Jewish Thought and Philosophy (2010) 18(2): 121-146.
Emmanuel Levinas on the Priority of Ethics: Putting Ethics First (Cambria, 2008).
Selected Writings (Miscellaneous)
“Gratitude, Self-Assessment, and Moral Inquiry.” The Journal of Value Inquiry (2013) 47(3): 407-423.
“Philosophy of Humor.” Philosophy Compass (2010) 5(2): 112-126.