Department of Philosophy

I work primarily on topics at the intersection of moral psychology, applied ethics, and social philosophy, including feminist philosophy and the philosophy of race. My main research project concerns the moral and psychological profile of dehumanization: acts and attitudes that, in some sense, deny the humanity of their victims (for example, objectification, animalization, and infantilization). I want to understand how the motivational structure of such acts and attitudes shapes their moral character, and how seeing (or not seeing) someone as a person is related to treating (or not treating) her as a person. In the background of my thinking is the idea that recognizing someone's humanity has motivational content, and, in particular, that it is constitutively tied to rudimentary forms of ethical concern and emotional responsiveness. My work in this area aspires to interdisciplinarity, and I regularly engage with literature, history, social psychology, and genocide studies, among other disciplines.

Further research projects include (1) formulating a complementary account of rehumanization: the rediscovery, or reconstitution, of one's humanity in the wake of dehumanizing treatment; (2) investigating whether, or in what sense, love might be a moral emotion; and (3) determining the substantive ethical implications of the fact that many of our moral obligations are directed or bipolar. I have written on domination, racism, social invisibility, and directed obligation.