I am a Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy at the Global Priorities Institute at the University of Oxford, where I am also a Non-Stipendiary Research Fellow in Politics at Nuffield College. In Spring 2020, I completed my PhD in philosophy at the University of Arizona under the primary supervision of Jerry Gaus.
I work primarily in social, moral, and political philosophy. Much of my research is interdisciplinary: it brings social scientific tools and evidence to bear on moral and political questions, and so falls under the umbrella of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (“PPE”). Although I have diverse research interests, what unifies my work is a concern with social reform or improvement. Specifically, my research focuses on methodological, evaluative, empirical, and normative questions about social reform, such as: how should we theorize about social reform? what makes a society better or worse? how do social institutions function and change? and when and how should individuals contribute to efforts to promote social reform? I am especially interested in approaching these questions from a long-term and expansive perspective that attends both to our institutions’ long-run evolution and to their effects on people in other societies, on non-human animals, and on future generations.
I work primarily in social, moral, and political philosophy. Much of my research is interdisciplinary: it brings social scientific tools and evidence to bear on moral and political questions, and so falls under the umbrella of Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (“PPE”). Although I have diverse research interests, what unifies my work is a concern with social reform or improvement. Specifically, my research focuses on methodological, evaluative, empirical, and normative questions about social reform, such as: how should we theorize about social reform? what makes a society better or worse? how do social institutions function and change? and when and how should individuals contribute to efforts to promote social reform? I am especially interested in approaching these questions from a long-term and expansive perspective that attends both to our institutions’ long-run evolution and to their effects on people in other societies, on non-human animals, and on future generations.