Degrees

Ph.D., Stony Brook University
B.A., Clark Honors College, University of Oregon

Main Interests

• Global/Development Ethics
• Political Philosophy
• Normative Ethics
• Feminist Philosophy

Research Interests

I am interested in analyzing oppression and deprivation, understanding why liberalism sometimes has difficulty taking the needs and demands of oppressed and deprived people seriously, and reimagining liberalism in ways that allow it to take more seriously the needs of oppressed and deprived people.

My publications on the limits and possibilities of liberalism for oppressed and deprived people include work on equality for the cognitively disabled, work on women's reproductive rights, and work about the role of the concept of choice in international development ethics.

I have recently completed a book (forthcoming in 2011 from Oxford University Press) on the concept of adaptive preference in development practice -- that is, the idea that oppression and deprivation can shape people's desires in ways that make them complicit in perpetuating their own oppression and deprivation. In the book, I develop a liberalism-compatible justification of public intervention designed to transform people's adaptive preferences. I offer what I call a "deliberative perfectionist approach" to identifying and responding to adaptive preferences. My approach rests on the perfectionist premise that human beings share a tendency toward basic flourishing. I conceptualize adaptive preferences as deficits in the capacity to flourish but refuse to define flourishing according to a thick, culturally specific vision. My deliberative perfectionist approach attempts to harmonize three moral commitments: a commitment to promoting people≠s basic flourishing, a commitment to respecting people with adaptive preferences as agents, and a commitment to the belief that there are many ways for human beings to flourish.

Teaching Interests

• Feminist Theory
• Global Ethics
• Human Rights
• Introduction to Women's Studies
• Individual and Society
• Normative Ethics
• Transnational Feminisms

Other Interests

I serve on the board of the Philosophy in an Inclusive Key Institute (PIKSI), a summer institute designed to encourage students from underrepresented groups to enter the philosophical profession. For more information about PIKSI, see http://rockethics.psu.edu/education/piksi/.

Selected Publications, Creative Work, or Performances

Adaptive Preferences and Empowerment. Oxford University Press. Forthcoming 2011.

"Beyond Inadvertent Ventriloquism: Caring Virtues for Participatory Development." Hypatia 25.1.

"Adaptive Preferences and Procedural Autonomy." Journal of Human Development and Capabilities 10. 2 (2009).

"When Equality Justifies Women's Subjection: Luce Irigaray's Critique of Equality and the Fathers' Rights Movement." Hypatia 23.4 (2008).

"Cognitive Disability, Capabilities, and Justice." Essays in Philosophy 9. 1 (2008).

"NGOs, Charity and Justice." Presented at the 2009 Eastern Division Meetings of the American Philosophical Association.

"Maternalism Against Paternalism: Caring Virtues for Development Practice." Presented at the 2009 conference of the Association for Feminist Ethics and Social Theory.

Thinking With Irigaray. edited with Mary Rawlinson and Sabrina Hom. SUNY Press. Forthcoming 2010.