My Research
My areas of specialization include theoretical and applied ethics (incl. bioethics), moral psychology, and the philosophy of emotion. Broadly speaking, I am interested in puzzles at the intersection of ethics and emotion. My recent projects span three overlapping areas of philosophy: philosophy of emotional attachment and love, agency and emotion, and forgiveness and moral responsibility. See below for downloadable versions of selected publications. For a complete list, see my PhilPeople page, or download my CV.
Selected Journal Publications
On Moral Pride as Taking Responsibility for the Good Philosophy and Public Affairs, 2023, 51(3): 265-293.
Forgiving, Committing, and Un-forgiving
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2022, 104(2): 474-488.
Agency and Varieties of Felt Necessity Ethics, 2021,132(1): 155-179.
Can We Un-Forgive?
Philosophers’ Imprint, 2021, 21(6): 1-13.
American Philosophical Quarterly, 2017, 54(3): 235-250.
On Being Attached Philosophical Studies, 2016, 173(1): 223-242.
Selected Invited Contributions
Love and Caring | with Agnieska Jaworska | 2024
Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Love, eds. C. Grau & A. Smuts. Oxford University Press, 251-269.
Love and the Anatomy of Needing Another | 2022
Oxford Handbook of Moral Psychology, eds. J. Doris & M. Vargas, Oxford University Press, 983-999.
Attachment, Addiction, and Vices of Valuing | 2021
Attachment and Character, ed. E. Harcourt, Oxford University Press, 224-245.
Psychopathy, Agency, and Practical Reason | 2021 Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason, eds. R. Chang & K. Sylvan. Routledge, 262-275.
Early Relationships, Pathologies of Attachment and the Capacity to Love | 2018
Routledge Handbook of Love in Philosophy, ed. A. Martin, Routledge, 23-34.
The Good of Community | with Maudemarie Clark | 2014 Individual and Community in Nietzsche’s Philosophy, ed. J. Young. Cambridge University Press, 118-140.
Book Manuscript Project:
Attachment, Agency, and Emotion
Emotional attachment is crucial for individual psychological
development and interpersonal relationships; yet, despite its
ineluctable import and complexity, the topic of attachment
per se has been relatively underexplored in the philosophical
literature. In my dissertation, I began to address this lacuna by
offering a preliminary account of the nature and value of a
particular type of attachment. That investigation spawned a
number of articles which you can find here.
I am currently working on a plan to further develop and
consolidate this work in the form of a book manuscript that
will be divided into three sections, each containing 3-4
chapters (totaling 10 chapters). I briefly describe the book
trajectory below.
In Section I, “On Being Attached,” I draw on insights from ancient Stoicism and Eastern philosophy, as well as empirical work from clinical and developmental psychology in order to lay out a working account of (a specific type of) attachment. I then distinguish this type of attachment from more philosophically familiar ways that something might matter to us (e.g., desire, valuing, caring, love) and consider how attachment motivates and constrains action and helps to shape one’s identity.
In Section II, “Attachment and Emotion,” I animate the aforementioned view of attachment toward informing extant debates in the philosophy of emotion. I argue that attending to the roles of attachment in love, hate, and grief can help to illuminate various puzzles about the nature and norms of these emotional phenomena (e.g., their constituent features, how they impact human agency, their phenomenology, their warrant/rationality conditions, and their value). Candidates for a fourth chapter in this section include related work on trust and pride.
In Section III, “Attachment, Well-being, and Ethics,” I adduce research on certain attachment-related forms of psychopathology to show how attachment orientations can help or hinder well-being and agency, and I argue that, when one attaches well, attachment can foster and strengthen some of the very same virtues that attachment is sometimes thought to undermine. In the last chapter, I plan to examine the social and ethical implications of relating to attached others in particular ways. Among the relevant issues here are certain obligations associated with being another’s attachment object and the gravity of social and political measures that disrupt, threaten, or destroy attachment relations (e.g., legally mandated parent-child separation, community displacement, and forced migration).