Research
My research, which is primarily in social and political philosophy, ethics, and the history of philosophy, focuses on the theory of freedom and coercion, on the social organization of work, and on Marx and Marxism. Several of the papers mentioned below are available via my PhilPeople page; drafts of the others are available from me on request. (Questions, comments, and objections welcome!)
My core research project to date has been about freedom. Dominant contemporary philosophical conceptions of freedom, I argue, do not put us in a position to understand some of the most basic truths about freedom and unfreedom: for example, why a slave who does her master’s bidding in order to avoid a beating acts unfreely, even though she makes a reasoned choice in pursuit of her own ends. To address such problems, I am developing a novel theory of freedom. Drawing on themes from Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and especially Marx, the core idea is that free activity must be an unqualified exercise of agency, and that such activity must be intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated. My paper "Freedom, Desire, and Necessity: Autonomous Activity as Activity for Its Own Sake" was recently published in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. Another paper, on interpersonal coercion and incentivization, is currently under review but available from me on request.
The second strand of my current research is more applied and focuses on the social organization of work. Recently, there has been a renewed interest among political philosophers in various forms of worker participation in decision-making at work. Such participation, it has been argued, could address problems ranging from arbitrary interference in workers’ lives to the absence of meaningful work. While I am sympathetic to these proposals, I argue that they are importantly limited by their focus on the individual firm in isolation from the broader economic context in which firms operate. Even egalitarian and democratic firms, I argue, are likely to be compelled by the pressure of competition to make managerial decisions which fail to take adequate account of workers’ interests in important respects. To bring into view both the problem and what is needed to address it, I defend a more demanding ideal of economic self-government beyond the individual workplace. My paper "The Difficulty of Making Good Work Available to All" was recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy.
While my research in general is rooted in an engagement with the history of philosophy, I also work on post-Kantian European philosophy directly, especially Marx's concept of alienation. My paper "The Unity of Marx's Concept of Alienated Labor" is forthcoming in The Philosophical Review.
My core research project to date has been about freedom. Dominant contemporary philosophical conceptions of freedom, I argue, do not put us in a position to understand some of the most basic truths about freedom and unfreedom: for example, why a slave who does her master’s bidding in order to avoid a beating acts unfreely, even though she makes a reasoned choice in pursuit of her own ends. To address such problems, I am developing a novel theory of freedom. Drawing on themes from Aristotle, Kant, Hegel, and especially Marx, the core idea is that free activity must be an unqualified exercise of agency, and that such activity must be intrinsically rather than extrinsically motivated. My paper "Freedom, Desire, and Necessity: Autonomous Activity as Activity for Its Own Sake" was recently published in the Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy. Another paper, on interpersonal coercion and incentivization, is currently under review but available from me on request.
The second strand of my current research is more applied and focuses on the social organization of work. Recently, there has been a renewed interest among political philosophers in various forms of worker participation in decision-making at work. Such participation, it has been argued, could address problems ranging from arbitrary interference in workers’ lives to the absence of meaningful work. While I am sympathetic to these proposals, I argue that they are importantly limited by their focus on the individual firm in isolation from the broader economic context in which firms operate. Even egalitarian and democratic firms, I argue, are likely to be compelled by the pressure of competition to make managerial decisions which fail to take adequate account of workers’ interests in important respects. To bring into view both the problem and what is needed to address it, I defend a more demanding ideal of economic self-government beyond the individual workplace. My paper "The Difficulty of Making Good Work Available to All" was recently published in the Journal of Applied Philosophy.
While my research in general is rooted in an engagement with the history of philosophy, I also work on post-Kantian European philosophy directly, especially Marx's concept of alienation. My paper "The Unity of Marx's Concept of Alienated Labor" is forthcoming in The Philosophical Review.