Here are my representative research projects and presentations...
Pacific APA Colloquium Presentation
The Problem of Forgotten Moral Truths
2022 Pacific APA Colloquium Presentation
2022 USC Rightness, Ignorance, Certainty and Praise Workshop Presentation
2021 UBC Graduate Philosophy Colloquium Presentation
Abstract: The distinction between moral and factual ignorance is divisive within debates concerning the epistemic component of moral responsibility. Proponents of the Asymmetry Thesis permit that factual ignorance can be excusing, but not moral ignorance, whereas proponents of the Parity Thesis defend that moral and factual ignorance can both be excusing, and perhaps in the same way. I pose a challenge for the Asymmetry Thesis: the problem of forgotten moral truths. Given that human moral agents operate with fallible cognitive systems liable to forget any number of facts, we do not have strong reasons to grant that moral facts always differ from other types of facts in cases of failed memory. The phenomenon of forgotten moral truths allows the possibility that at least one type of moral ignorance can be excusing in the same way as in cases of factual ignorance: when the agent blamelessly forgets the relevant moral truth.
The Harms of Mere Belief
2022 Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress Poster Presentation
2022 UBC Graduate Philosophy Colloquium Presentation
Funded research by SSHRC-CGSM grant
Abstract: I advance an argument against the common intuition that mere beliefs cannot constitute harming by developing a probabilistic model of harm. On this framework, an unjust rearrangement of a target’s probability space can constitute a harm in itself, as we standardly understand our moral entitlements to include certain claims over the scope of possibilities and opportunities present in our lives, the deprivation of which makes us worse-off. Moreover, at the social level, widescale oppressive beliefs such as sexist or racist beliefs must be understood as concrete harms insofar as beliefs have corresponding probabilities of causing action. As social beliefs do not involve individual agents but larger populations as both belief-holders and targets, the threshold for practically guaranteeing that concrete harms are realized is amply satisfied. Hence, the language of ‘harmful beliefs’ is not metaphorical, or a misleading shorthand – mere beliefs can and do cause harm.
'Mount Ranier in Teal and Rubine' - Acrylic, 14x20
'Whooping Cranes on Pic Island' - Acrylic, 20x20
When the Sprouts Wither: Frontotemporal dementia and the Mengzi-Xunzi disagreement on human nature
2023 Eastern APA Colloquia Presentation as part of the Association of Chinese Philosophers in North America
Abstract: The intra-Confucian debate regarding the source of virtue (whether it is internal or external) has as an underlying assumption some basic stability of the innate substance throughout an agent’s life. This assumption is challenged by the phenomenon of dementia and other neurodegenerative illnesses, especially frontotemporal dementia which generally results in significant changes in an individual’s moral personality, including losses to their capacity to feel empathy, to behave appropriately, and to maintain their social roles. While this suggests a renewed interpretation in Mengzi’s virtue internalism (specifically, that external cultural training has little efficacy without the innate ‘sprouts’ of goodness), it also challenges Xunzi’s virtue externalism insofar as it would be impossible on this view for changes on the already vicious human nature to impact moral behavior. This paper broadly highlights a weakness in the Confucian virtue theory framework in accounting for changes in moral character that occur in later life, and more broadly examines virtue theory’s approach to an individual changing internal conditions.
The Ontology of Gendered Material Objects
Upcoming 2023 Pacific APA Colloquium Presentation
2021 UBC Graduate Philosophy Colloquium Presentation
Abstract: Our lives are constructed in part by the ordinary material objects that we interact with, which have influences over our experiences that are sometimes irreducible to the effects of other agents. Some of these objects have immediately apparent gendered dimensions: a children’s doll, a flag at a women’s march, an over-priced pink razor, and so on. Others have gendered dimensions that are less obvious: a seatbelt whose safety testing procedures included only men, a smartphone produced by exploiting women’s labour, or a prescription painkiller with a recommended dosage calibrated solely for adult male bodies. As a collective, this class of objects generally reinforce the extent to which the material reality of our social world is simply not constructed for women, which constitutes an oppressive force that goes beyond the harms of mere social interaction or behaviour. Consequently, the broader aims of any egalitarian feminist project are incomplete even if we removed all instances of oppressive social interaction, for there would nevertheless remain a class of material objects with harmful gendered effects.
'Prairie Gold' - Acrylic, 42x30