Research Summary
My research focuses on the intersection of ethics and moral psychology, specifically regarding the reasons of love and their role in moral justification and human flourishing. My research is motivated by contemporary philosophical questions about the nature of love and its role in our practical lives. In my dissertation, “In the Name of Love: Love’s Public and Private Reasons,” I intervene in the reasons of love debate, which asks whether or not reasons we have to act with or for our loved ones are moral reasons. While some philosophers argue that love provides us with sui generis reasons that compete with moral reasons, others view reasons of love as a kind of moral reason. Rather than defend one of these camps, I argue that reasons of love are genuinely ethical because of love’s relation to human flourishing, while the intimacy and privacy constitutive of love place limits on those reasons’ availability in public moral justification. Therefore, reasons of love do not separate us from morality, but can often separate us from our moral community. My argument proceeds by tracing the cases that motivate this debate: instances of agents performing morally dubious actions for their loved ones. One such case I take from Toni Morrison’s novel, Sula, in which Nel protects her best friend, Sula, after Sula accidentally drowns a little boy. Nel has an ethical reason to protect Sula, I argue, one grounded in her love for Sula, but this reason remains partially opaque to her moral community because it is grounded in the private, historical loveworld—a kind of shared identity—that Nel and Sula create together.
Publications
Iris Murdoch and Moral Psychology
Oxford University Press | Forthcoming | Coauthored with Dr. Matthew Congdon
Book Review: Stephen Darwall, The Heart and Its Attitudes
The Journal of Moral Philosophy | Forthcoming
Playful Sex, Serious Business: A Reply to boomer trujillo's The Virtue of Playfulness: Why Happy People Are Playful
Syndicate Philosophy Review | Forthcoming
Friendship: A Way Out of Moral Danger
Southwest Philosophy Review 46 (1) 2026
Current Research Focus
The Difficulty of Love
My first monograph, The Difficulty of Love, will expand upon the themes of my dissertation, investigating the ethical dimensions of interpersonal relationships, their role in identity formation, the privacy of their reasons, and the implications these have in practical contexts. Specifically, I will explore alternative methods of moral address beyond the language-game of moral justification in political, social, and medical contexts.
Iris Murdoch and Love
Currently in progress are two papers concerning the moral philosophy of Iris Murdoch. One paper explores the ways in which Murdoch's conception of love and private reasons helps to carve out a unique reductionist position in the reasons of love debate. The other paper explores Murdoch's conception of love as deeply ambivalent and its relationship to the value of justice.
Applied Ethics: Love, Medicine, and AI
Another track of research currently underway investigates questions in applied ethics. In particular I am interested in the ways in which the kind of love I identify in my dissertation can help or hinder healthy physician-patient relationships, particularly given the ways in which love and care between physician and patient help to structure the identities of both participants. I will also ask whether or not AI can be utilized in the context of narrative medicine in ways that completely shoulder out the human physician, or if there is still an ineliminable role for the human health care professional. Finally, I will ask whether or not human beings can be friends with artificial agents. Since friendship entails the mutual formation of identities, understanding friendship with AI will require understanding more about the personal identities of artificial agents.
Conference Presentations
2026 “Love: A Paradigm Based Account”
The 2026 Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association
2026 “Friendship: A Way Out of Moral Danger”
The 2025 Southwest Philosophical Society Meeting, presented in absentia due to illness
2025 “Friendship and Grace: A Way Out of Moral Danger”
The 2025 Central Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association (virtual)
2024 “Narrative, Meaning, and Well-Being: Fact or Fiction?”
Sixth International Conference on Philosophy and Meaning in Life
University of Liverpool
2024 “Where is the ‘Justice’ In Iris Murdoch’s ‘Just and Loving Gaze’?”
Mapping Theories of Attention: Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
University of Galway
2023 “Narrative, Meaning, and Well-Being: Fact or Fiction?”
Tennessee Philosophical Association
Vanderbilt University
2023 “Where is the ‘Justice’ In Iris Murdoch’s ‘Just and Loving Gaze’?”
Iris Murdoch Transatlantic Ties (virtual)
Conference Commentaries
2025 Author meets Critic: Response to “Ableism in Aristotelianism” by Kristina Gehrman
Tennessee Philosophical Association
Vanderbilt University
2025 Chair for “The Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society” Panel
The Central Division Meeting for the American Philosophical Association (virtual)
2024 Commentary on “Nietzsche on Affirmative Love” by Joel Van Fossen
Love and Loneliness Conference
California State University San Bernadino
2024 Commentary on “TMI Christology” by Matthew Baddorf
Tennessee Philosophical Association
Vanderbilt University
2024 Chair, Panel: Morals and Realism
Iris Murdoch: Literature and Philosophy in Dialogue
Sorbonne University
2024 Commentary on “Kantian Geschichte and the Trap of a Single ‘History of Philosophy.’ Or:
A reflection on Power and Structural Change” by Huaping Lu-Adler
Vanderbilt Modern Philosophy Group (VAMP) and Vanderbilt’s Minorities and
Philosophy (MAP) Chapter Spring Speaker Series
Invited Talks
2024 Women in Bioethics
Minorities and Philosophy (MAP)
Vanderbilt University
2022 Expert Teaching Assistant Panel
Teaching Assistant Orientation
Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching