I specialize in ethics (metaethics and normative ethics) and feminism. I am particularly interested in moral skepticism, moral psychology, action theory, and feminist philosophy. Much of my work intersects ethics and feminism: I apply feminist insights to traditional issues in ethics, and apply the methods of analytic philosophy to issues in feminism. My book, The Moral Skeptic (OUP, Jan. 2009), is an example of how my work imports feminist insights into traditional issues in metaethics and normative ethics. I challenge the traditional picture of the skeptic who asks, "Why be moral?" I argue against the traditional picture that it is too weak and not sufficiently politically sensitive. For a successful defeat of skepticism, we need to defeat not only the action skeptic, but the disposition skeptic (who denies that being morally disposed is rationally required) and the motive skeptic (who believes that merely going through the motions in acting morally is rationally permissible), and to address the amoralist (who is not moved by moral reasons he recognizes). We also need to expand the skeptic’s position from self-interest to privilege to include morally unjustified behavior targeting disenfranchised social groups, as well as revise the traditional expected utility model to exclude desires deformed by patriarchy as irrational. I argue that the skeptical challenge can be answered if it can be shown that it is inconsistent and therefore irrational to privilege oneself over others.

Other issues I have examined in my published work include contractarian and feminist attempts to defeat moral skepticism, whether acting from moral motives is rationally required, the internalism/externalism debate about reasons and motivation, responsibility of the privileged for harm to the oppressed, responsibility of the Deferential Wife for her servility, victim-blaming, deformed desires and informed desire tests, the connection between the rationality of dispositions and of actions, the moral status of faculty/student amorous relationships, and sexual harassment. I really don’t look like Mike Ditka, but I am a devoted Bears fan.

Areas of Specialization:

• Ethics
• Metaethics
• Normative Ethics
• Moral Psychology
• Action Theory
• Feminist Philosophy

Books:

• The Moral Skeptic. Oxford University Press, January 2009.
• (Co-editor with Sharon Crasnow) Analytical Feminism: Engaging the Tradition (in progress)
• (Co-editor with Ann Cudd) Theorizing Backlash: Philosophical Reflections on the Resistance to Feminism. Rowman & Littlefield, 2002.

Edited Volumes:

• Teaching Philosophy: Teaching in the New Climate of Conservatism. June 2007.
• (Co-editor with Samantha Brennan) Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy: Special Issue on Analytic Philosophy. Fall 2005. 
• American Philosophical Association Newsletter on Feminism and Philosophy. Spring 2003.

Articles:

• "The Deferential Wife Revisited:  Agency and Moral Responsibility" (forthcoming in Hypatia).
• Entry on Feminist Moral Psychology, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 
• "Privilege, Immorality, and Responsibility for Attending to the ‘Facts About Humanity’," Journal of Social Philosophy 35 (1) (Spring 2004): 109-126.
• "Response to Four Commentaries: Antony, Darwall, Thomas, Uleman" on "Privilege..." for the Symposium on Gender, Race and Philosophy (Jan. 2006): 1-12.
• "The Rationality of Dispositions and the Rationality of Actions: The Interdependency Thesis," Dialogue: Canadian Philosophical Review 44 (2005): 439-68.
• "Amorous Relationships Between Faculty and Students," The Southern Journal of Philosophy 39 (3) (2001): 419-440.
• "A Feminist Definition of Sexual Harassment," Journal of Social Philosophy 24 (2) (1993): 46-64.

Recently Taught Courses:

• Contemporary Moral Problems, with emphasis on Race and Gender (U. Michigan)
• The Authority of Reason
• Philosophical Issues Surrounding Abortion
• Dignity and Self-Respect
• The Role of Values in Theories of Morality and Rationality
• Evil, Immorality, and Amorality
• Ethical Theory
• Ethics
• Introduction to Feminism and Philosophy
• Feminist Philosophy