My research falls in the intersection of ethics, psychology, and ancient philosophy. I investigate ways in which our moral agency extends beyond our reflective and deliberative capacities. Our capacity to feel and articulate anger, for instance, enables and sometimes, ensures our ability to hold the other responsible when they inflict indignity. In conditions of oppression, when appropriate expressions of anger and other moral emotions are repeatedly thwarted, our moral agency diminishes in part because our imagination and affective capacities are harmed.

(I discuss my research in some detail in an interview for the ‘Ideas that Matter’ series. See here)

In ancient philosophy, my research focuses broadly on the ethical and epistemic significance of emotions and the imagination. Despite the attention researchers have given to Aristotle’s discussions of emotions in his Rhetoric, how emotions bear on ethical action and on ethical judgment remains insufficiently understood. I explore these issues in a series of papers. While imagination (phantasia) has been relatively well-studied, its role in the psychological underpinnings of experiential knowledge (empeiria) and moral learning remains to be clarified. My research on this subject is part of an ongoing book project.

In my contemporary research projects, drawing on Aristotle’s works and feminist philosophy, I develop fresh accounts of (i) agency with respect to emotions and (ii) neglected aspects of moral agency, and their implication for moral responsibility.

Papers in Progress:

Apt Anger and Moral Agency

Aristotle on the Structure of Memory

Why is Pain a Feminist Issue?

In picture, Bernie Sanders Nathan