Research

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My current research projects lie in Ancient Greek Philosophy, and Moral and Political Philosophy. Here's a brief summary of some of my work in these areas.

 

 

Ethics

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My research in ethics has both a descriptive and normative component.  My dissertation focused on explicating Wittgenstein’s philosophical method, and how it is used (by Wittgenstein) to illuminate the sense in which our understanding and use of language is -- and is not -- a rule-governed activity.  I found it useful to explain and assess some of the key passages on rule-following in his Philosophical Investigations by exploring what I take to be an illuminating analogy between his discussion of how we come to understand the meaning of words and Aristotle’s discussion of how we acquire the virtues of character.  In both discussions, talk involving "dispositions," "habits," "training," "decision," and "practice,” plays a central role.  Currently, I am exploring that analogy (between language acquisition and development of moral character) in greater depth.  Part of my research involves applying Wittgenstein’s discussion of rule-following to so-called moral rule-following (i.e., using his discussion to illuminate our relationship to moral rules), and conversely, using results from moral psychology, and in particular Aristotelian virtue ethics, to illuminate his discussion of rule-following.  Few efforts have been made to extend Wittgenstein's ideas on rule-following in this way, or even to explore the striking similarities with Aristotle -- including their approach to philosophical problems.  I hope to contribute to filling in that gap through this research. 

     My interest in moral rules focuses not only on the descriptive question of how they are actually used in moral reasoning (either consciously or sub-consciously), but on the normative question of how they should be used.  In exploring this question, I appeal once again to Greek philosophy, by making of the Socratic Method (after pointing to some obvious inadequacies with other commonly cited means -- e.g., the law, religion, one's conscience, moral intuition, majority opinion, stability in majority opinion over time).  Briefly, this method consists in working back and forth between our moral judgments about particular instances/cases and the moral principles/rules/standards that we believe govern them, revising -- through dialogue and debate, or Socratic elenchus -- any of these elements wherever necessary in order to achieve an acceptable coherence among them.  When moral beliefs about a specific situation are rationally grounded in this way, I argue, we may regard them as provisionally established -- in the sense that they have the highest degree of acceptability or credibility for us -- just as we do in courts of law, where the Socratic method figures prominently.  

               

 

Political Philosophy

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My work in political philosophy traces and critiques leading philosophical contributions to the question “What is Justice?” from the ancient Greeks to modern times.  This work constitutes a book-in-progress: Justice and Society.  Some of the topics explored in the book include Plato’s and Aristotle’s theories of justice, direct vs. representative democracy, freedom of speech, tolerance and its limits, capitalism vs. socialism, utilitarian vs. rights-based ethics, income distribution, corporate social responsibility, our responsibilities toward the environment, human flourishing, and moral motivation, among others.