I am most interested in what it is to be a moral agent. I am especially interested in moral deliberation and practical reasoning. In broadest terms, my work examines the relation between practical reasoning and our non-rational faculties, our rationally optional values and commitments, and our capacity to be self-determining or autonomous. Although I always aim to develop general theories at fairly high levels of abstraction, I carry out much this examination on the ground, so to speak, by analyzing the interplay between practical reasoning, non-rational faculties and values, and autonomy in the context of clinical care and research.

Currently, I have two primary projects. First, I am writing a series a papers that asks what specific value commitments, if any, are presupposed by rational deliberation and action. Second, in another series of papers, I explore the interaction between the emotions and practical reasoning; I am particularly interested in hope, and how the exercise of imagination involved in hope influences, and is influenced by, practical reasoning.

Drafts of some of these papers are available on my personal website (url above).