[updated: 16 July 2025]
Welcome!
If you would like to learn more about me and my work, please choose among the links on the left side of this webpage.
I am chair of the UC San Diego Department of Philosophy.
My research interests include the history of European philosophy (with emphasis on Plato, René Descartes, John Locke, Mary Astell, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Mary Shepherd), moral philosophy (particularly non-consequentialist ethics based on the doctrine of doing and allowing and a secular version of the doctrine of double effect), legal philosophy (including issues of legal interpretation and problems related to the right to privacy, as well as due process and equal protection under the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution), and the philosophy of language. I am a member of the Moral Judgments Project, working with professors and graduate students in philosophy and psychology on research in experimental philosophy.
The undergraduate courses I have taught regularly include symbolic logic (Phil 120), the history of early modern European philosophy (Phil 111), Plato (Phil 100), freedom, equality, and the law (Phil 165), and more recently the meaning of life (Phil 141). Recent graduate seminars have focused on the following figures/topics: Mary Astell; John Locke; George Berkeley, David Hume, and Mary Shepherd; the ethics of risk; moral sentimentalism in modern European philosophy.
I started the UC San Diego Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl team in 2018 and served as the team's coach through the 2023-24 season. In 2018, the team won three out of four rounds at the California Regional Tournament, and narrowly missed out on an invitation to the National Tournament. In 2019, one of our two teams earned second place in the California Regional, and participated in the National Tournament in Atlanta in February 2020. Because of the pandemic, I took a hiatus in 2020-21. In fall 2021, the team again earned second place in the California Regional, participated in the National Tournament (online), and made it to the quarter-finals before losing to the eventual winners, Macalester College. In fall 2022, a new team earned third place in the California Regional, thereby receiving another invitation to the National Tournament, which was held in March 2023 in Portland, OR. In Fall 2023, an excellent and well-prepared team was unfortunately unable to compete in the California Regional because of illness. In 2024-25, the team was coached by my colleague, Prof. Reuven Brandt, performed brilliantly at the California Regional, and made it to the National Tournament. Please contact Prof. Brandt if you have any questions about Ethics Bowl at UC San Diego or would like to join the UC San Diego Ethics Bowl Team in Fall 2025.
News
Recently published
“Non-Consequentialist Principles Under Conditions of Uncertainty: A Framework” (with Dana Kay Nelkin). In The Trolley Problem, edited by Hallvard Lillehammer (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2023), pp. 79-100.
"Beyond Killing One to Save Five: Sensitivity to Ratio and Probability in Moral Judgment" (with Arseny A. Ryazanov, Shawn Tinghao Wang, Dana Kay Nelkin, and Craig R. M. McKenzie), Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 108 (2023): 104499.
"Locke on Free Will and Epistemic Responsibility," Argumenta (Journal of the Italian Society for Analytic Philosophy) (2023): 1-16.
"Trolley Problems Reimagined: Sensitivity to Ratio, Risk, and Comparisons," (with Craig R. M. McKenzie, Dana Kay Nelkin, and Arseny A. Ryazanov). In Experiments in Moral and Political Philosophy, edited by Fernando Aguiar, Antonio Gaitan, and Hugo Viciana (New York and London: Routledge, 2024), pp. 62-82.
"Conscience or Disobedience? Comments on Dov Fox, 'The Lopsided Law of Medical Conscience," Journal of Contemporary Legal Issues 25 (2024): 139-147.
"Locke's Diagnosis of Akrasia Revisited" (with Leonardo Moauro), Journal of Modern Philosophy 6 (2024): doi: https://doi.org/10.25894/jmp.1864
"Locke on Morality and Religion," Studi Lockiani Ricerche sull’età moderna 5 (2024): 119-159.
“Does Mary Astell Think that Marriage is a Form of Slavery?” (with Esraa Wasel), British Journal for the History of Philosophy, published online.
“Does Sarah Chapone Endorse a Republican Conception of Liberty?”, European Journal of Philosophy, published online.
Recently completed
“Why Mary Astell’s Theory of Virtue is Not Inconsistent,” in press at Locke Studies.
“Locke on Consent, Societal Membership, and Political Obligation” (with Karina Ortiz Villa), in press at History of Philosophy Quarterly.
“Is Leibniz’s Theory of ‘I’ Coherent?” (with Min Heo), in press at Journal of Modern Philosophy.
“Locke on Simple and Complex Ideas.” To appear in Locke’s “An Essay concerning Human Understanding”: A Critical Guide, edited by Matthew Leisinger, Cambridge University Press.
"Locke in the Context of Early Modern Philosophy." To appear in The Oxford Handbook of Locke, edited by Patrick Connolly, Oxford University Press.
“Four Challenges to Cudworth’s Theory of Freedom and Moral Responsibility.” To appear in The Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth, edited by Marleen Rozemond and Matthew Leisinger, Routledge.
"Shepherd's Argument for the Causal Maxim: 'There is no Object Which Begins to Exist, but Must Owe its Existence to Some Cause.'" To appear in Essays on Mary Shepherd: Causation, Mind, and Perception, edited by Keota Fields.