Research

I am pursuing two interrelated research programs at the intersection of social/political philosophy, feminist philosophy, and ethics. The first develops new frameworks for understanding complacency, responsibility, resistance, and epistemology within marginalized communities. The second examines how power dynamics shape bioethics, as well as tech and AI ethics. 

Feel free to contact me for articles you cannot access or for drafts of work in progress. 

Publications

1. “The Moral Obligation to Resist Complacency about One’s Own Oppression.” Journal of the American Philosophical Association, 11(2), 374-392, 2025. (Winner of the 2024 Abraham J. Briloff Prize in Ethics)

Abstract: While philosophers have highlighted important reasons to resist one’s own oppression, they tend to overlook the phenomenon of complacency about one’s own oppression. This article addresses this gap by arguing that some oppressed agents are obligated to resist complacency about their own oppression because failing to do so would significantly harm themselves and others. Complacent members of oppressed groups fail to resist meaningfully, are self-satisfied, and are epistemically culpable. I contend that focusing on the obligation to combat complacency is useful for at least two reasons. First, complacency about one’s own oppression is a distinctive phenomenon that warrants separate philosophical attention. Second, focusing on the obligation to resist complacency helps analyze an undertheorized group of oppressed agents by challenging the binary understanding of power prevalent in the literature on the duty to resist, thereby sharpening philosophical accounts of resistance and filling a gap in a prominent well-being-based theory of resistance. 

2. “Complacency on Campus: How Allies Can Do Better.” (With Kurt Blankschaen). In College Ethics: A Reader on Moral Issues that Affect You, 2nd ed. Edited by Bob Fischer. Oxford University Press, September 2020.

Abstract: What does it mean to be a good ally to the LGBTQ community? Does it count if you attach a rainbow pin to your backpack or post occasional messages of support on social media? We argue that in order to be a good ally involves avoiding the vice of complacency and that allies need to ask themselves two distinct, but related questions: (1) Who are you an ally to?; (2) How are you an ally? While reflecting on these questions helps allies examine what they have or have not been doing so far, these questions point towards future action by encouraging allies to consider what else they need to be doing to help and who else they need to help.  

Selected Work in Progress

Dissertation

My dissertation examines the moral responsibility, vices, and moral competence of individuals who are privileged in some aspects of their identities and oppressed in others. Chapter one, adapted into a publication (2025), argues that privileged oppressed agents are obligated to resist complacency about their own oppression because failing to do so harms both themselves and others. Chapter two, “Valorpressive Vices: A Feminist Case for Consequentialist Virtue Ethics,” introduces a particular form of moral distortion under oppression in the assessment of what I call “valorpressive vices.” Valorpressive vices are traits that (1) seem to facilitate resistance to and survival under oppression, but (2) in practice manifest in oppression-reinforcing actions and (3) are mistakenly valorized by audiences as virtues. I develop a nonideal consequentialist virtue ethics framework to capture the viciousness of valorpressive vices and argue that privileged oppressed agents are especially culpable for exhibiting such vices. Chapter three, “(When) Can Victim-Blaming be Apt under Conditions of Oppression?” examines when, if ever, victim-blaming can be morally and politically apt. I argue that victim-blaming is apt when directed toward privileged oppressed agents and when such agents should be held accountable for failing to use their privilege to resist oppression. 

An extended abstract of my dissertation is available at the end of my CV.