Research. I’m interested in the prospect of understanding morality, and in particular that part of it concerning itself with ‘what we owe to each other’, in fundamentally relational terms. Much of my research is inspired by Stephen Darwall’s original work on the role of the second-person in ethics (Darwall 2006) and the idea that we stand in a relationship of mutual accountability to each other which enables us to make demands of each other. Contrary to Darwall, however, much of my own work takes as normatively basic not the shared relationship between all members of the moral community but the bipolar ‘I-you’- relationship that holds between two persons who possess the individual authority to demand certain treatment of one another as sources of valid claims. Among other things, the bipolar account is particularly well suited to properly accommodate the attitudinal dimension of interpersonal morality and its associated phenomena, including recognition respect, blame, apology, and forgiveness. I’m currently engaged in a project on developing and defending a bipolar account of morality. This project ‘Recognizing You - The Relational Nature of Morality - is funded by the DFG.

You can find out more about my dissertation research on these topics here.

I also have interests in political philosophy and the philosophy of law.

Publications

‘Moral Indifference’, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics 13 (2023), co-authored with Monika Betzler.

‘Moral Friends? The Idea of the Moral Relationship’, European Journal of Philosophy 31 (4) (2023).

‘Acting on Behalf of Another’, Canadian Journal of Philosophy 52 (5) (2022), co-authored with Alexander Edlich.

'Bipolar Obligations, Recognition Respect, and Second-Personal Morality', Journal of Ethics 23 (3) (2019).

Review of R. Jay Wallace’s ‘The Moral Nexus’ (PUP 2019), Journal of Moral Philosophy 18 (1) (2021).

Working Papers.

A paper on relational morality and third parties.

A paper on relational morality and accountability.

A paper on relational morality and the all things considered ought.

A paper on personal relationships and second-personal ethics.