Research

I work on the explanation of (practical) normativity, in particular on the relation of reasons and values. I’m also interested in action theory - in understanding what intentional agency is and when we are responsible for what we do - and normative ethics (e.g., promissory obligation and normative powers, and aspects of deontology). I’m currently working on a book-length account of a value-based explanation of practical normativity and some of its implications and complexities, in particular when it comes to accounting for obligations and duties.

Bio

I'm an Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at University College London (UCL).

Before coming to London, I was an Associate Professor at the University of Leeds and before that an Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

Even earlier, I've held fixed-term positions at Columbia University and Barnard College, New York, and at Balliol College, Oxford. In 2013-14, I received a mid-career fellowship from the British Academy for a project on the normative significance of intentions. With the BA’s support, I wrote a number of papers on intentions and reasons to act, as well as on reasons to intend. I also organised several workshops leading to an edited journal issue of the topic. In 2014-15 I was a Guest Research Professor at the University of Vienna as part of the ERC funded project Distortions of Normativity, continuing working on topics in the philosophy of action, as well beginning to think about responsibility and moral luck. I have since returned to working on core questions about the relation of values and reasons, and the explanation of second order reasons (exclusionary reasons), obligations, and reasons within relationships.

I have also been a faculty fellow at the Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard University (2008-9), a year of working at deontology and the reasons it relies on, and at the Center for Ethics and Public Affairs at the Murphy Institute at Tulane University, New Orleans (2003-4) where I began to work on buckpassing accounts of value - a topic that has stayed with me since. I received my doctorate from the Free University, Berlin, working on internal and external reasons.

In 2027-28, I will be a fellow at the Wissenschaftskolleg, Berlin.

Teaching

I regularly teach undergraduate and postgraduate modules in ethics, metaethics and philosophy of action. I’m happy to supervise postgraduate work in any of those areas.