Welcome to my home page. I hold a chair in philosophy at the University of Edinburgh.
- My research is principally in ethics, with particular emphases on suicide, grief, punishment, Kantian ethics, paternalism, work and labor, and moral psychology. My book Understanding Kant’s Ethics (Cambridge University Press) was published in 2016. My book, Suicide: The Philosophical Dimensions (2011) was named a Choice Outstanding Academic Title. I am presently completing the first-ever book on grief and bereavement from a philosophical perspective, slated for publication with Princeton University Press. My books are available for purchase here.
- I have also published 70 peer-reviewed articles, including articles in Mind, Ethics, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, Philosophical Studies, Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, and the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, as well as in collections published by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, and Routledge.
- I’m also a founding member of the International Association for the Philosophy of Death and Dying and a former member of the American Philosophical Association Committees on Public Philosophy and Teaching Philosophy, and previously served as an at-large board member of the American Philosophical Assocation Pacific Division. I currently serve on the Association’s Committee on International Cooperation.
- I serve as an editorial board member for the Journal of Applied Philosophy, a member of the board of advisors for Social Theory and Practice, a contributing editor at the Journal of the American Philosophical Association, and an area editor for ethics at Ergo. I happen to like reviewing manuscripts!
Here are some online articles I’ve written to familiarize you with my work (also see the Media and Blogs page for some videos, etc.):
- a video podcast from Eclectic Spacewalk – a good general introduction to my research, my background, and philosophical interests
- my article on suicide in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- a discussion at PEA Soup of my article “Black Lives Matter and the call for death penalty abolition”
- a review of Fischer and Mitchell-Yellin’s Near-Death Experience
- my Reddit Philosophy AMA (Ask Me Anything) session, January 2018
- “The Stranger, the Saint, and the Grief’s Goodness” (a good introduction to my work on grief)
- a podcast on grief, with special attention to issues related to grief and mourning in times of pandemics
- “Identity Threat” (a good introduction to some of my views on paternalism)
- an article highlighting some of my views on the ethics of work and a ‘post-work’ future, “The desire for work as an adaptive preference“
- a review essay on a collection I edited, The Future of Work, Technology, and Basic Income
