research
My research sits at the intersection of virtue ethics, philosophy of psychology, and AI ethics, united by a concern for how individuals and institutions shape moral character. Within virtue ethics, I explore the formation of character in educational, professional, and cultural contexts. I view pedagogy as a fundamentally moral endeavor—one that cultivates not just knowledge but also the virtues that guide how students think and live.
My work in AI ethics builds on these concerns by exploring how digital technologies affect the development of virtue. I critique the way AI systems—especially in education and professional settings—encourage instrumental reasoning at the expense of practical deliberation and how their chronic use might be malformative. Rather than framing AI ethics around compliance or human-likeness, I advocate for a teleological approach that evaluates AI in light of the ends it should serve. Across these domains, I aim to show that the cultivation of virtue is not peripheral to contemporary life, but central to our shared moral and intellectual future.
My work in AI ethics builds on these concerns by exploring how digital technologies affect the development of virtue. I critique the way AI systems—especially in education and professional settings—encourage instrumental reasoning at the expense of practical deliberation and how their chronic use might be malformative. Rather than framing AI ethics around compliance or human-likeness, I advocate for a teleological approach that evaluates AI in light of the ends it should serve. Across these domains, I aim to show that the cultivation of virtue is not peripheral to contemporary life, but central to our shared moral and intellectual future.
book project
My current book project, The Virtues and Vices of Learning: Teaching as Resistance in a Culture of Convenience is contracted with University of Oklahoma Press's "Teaching, Engaging, and Thriving in Higher Education" series. See a small teaser from the introduction below:
This book does not claim to offer new ideas. Instead, it brings very old wisdom into conversation with our present cultural moment—a moment defined by the crescendo of convenience, the promise of frictionless ease, and the reshaping of our habits by technologies designed to remove effort wherever possible. My aim is to explore what this collision means for higher education and why our courses and institutions must be intentionally designed with these forces in view.
The old wisdom is uncomplicated but profound: we are what we repeatedly do. Aristotle makes this observation in the Nicomachean Ethics, and it remains as true now as it was twenty-four centuries ago. If we want students to succeed in our classrooms—if we want them to truly learn—we must attend to the habits they bring with them and the habits our courses reinforce.
