Moral philosophy is my passion, but I strongly believe that ethics is not the sole province of professional philosophers. It is not the sole province of professionals insofar as every reflective human being faces the central ethical question of how best to live, and it is not the sole province of philosophers insofar as we have much to learn from other disciplines about the nature and possibility of value.  My work is therefore situated squarely within the discipline of moral philosophy while at the same time reaching beyond it. 

My particular academic focus is on virtue ethics and bioethics, and my recent articles have appeared in such journals as Ethics, Philosophical Quarterly, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, and The Hastings Center Report, as well as edited volumes from Oxford. My current book project – a Neo-Aristotelian account of heroic virtue, ordinary virtue, and the relation between them – is a work of analytic philosophy that also draws on insights from biography, literature, and social psychology.  

What excites me about teaching is drawing from this general approach to ethics to encourage a robust ethical discussion among students. In 2012, I was a recipient of UVA’s All-University Teaching Award.  I welcome the opportunity to reach an even wider audience of students within the intellectual environment that the College Fellows program seeks to cultivate.