Research
I am currently engaged in a number of exciting projects. Below you will find brief descriptions of them, but for more information please feel free to contact me.
Monograph: Kant and the British Moralists
I am currently writing a monograph, the aim of which is to explore an important but underappreciated influence on Kant’s moral philosophy: eighteenth-century British moral philosophy. I have already published on topics such as Kant’s critique of Francis Hutcheson’s conception of the moral sense, Adam Smith’s role in the development of Kant’s famous notion of respect (Achtung) for the moral law, and how both Kant and Hutcheson distinguish between love as benevolence and love as complacence. I also have a paper under review arguing that Kant’s psychology of moral motivation has less in common with a broadly Humean theory of action than many scholars have claimed. The monograph will expand on this research and explore additional topics such as:
1. Kant’s reading of David Hume’s second Enquiry in German translation;
2. how both Kant and Smith conceive of sympathy as involving the imagination;
3. a comparison of Kant’s moral rationalism with that of Samuel Clarke and Ralph Cudworth; and
4. the early British reception of Kant’s moral philosophy by Dugald Stewart.
I aim to complete the monograph by the end of 2025.
Johanna Charlotte Unzer (1725–82)
Unzer has been called the 'first female German philosopher', and her Outline of a Philosophy for Women (1751) was the first philosophical treatise written by a woman for a specifically female audience. I am currently engaged in three projects aimed at rediscovering Unzer’s philosophy:
1. together with Corey W. Dyck, I am editing and writing an introduction to a new edition of Unzer’s Outline, to be published by Olms press.
2. in January 2024 I am presenting a paper entitled ‘Johanna Charlotte Unzer (1725–82): Metaphysics for Women’ at the online ‘Women in Intellectual History Seminar Series’, organized by the International Society for Intellectual History.
3. together with Antonino Falduto (Ferrara, Italy) I am organizing an international conference on Unzer’s philosophy, tentatively taking place in 2025.
Journal Articles:
‘Moral Impossibility and the Formula of Universal Law’
Proposes a novel interpretation of the contradictions generated by maxims that fail the requirements of the Universal Law Formulation of the categorical imperative in light of how Kant’s rationalist predecessors, and Kant himself, understood the principle of non-contradiction.
‘Wolff and Baumgarten on Weakness of Will’
Argues that Christian Wolff’s ‘intellectualist’ conception of choice is weaker than commentators have traditionally claimed, as well as illustrates that Alexander Baumgarten attempted to even further temper Wolff’s view in order to overcome the objections of Wolff’s early critics.
Invited Chapters:
‘Kant and Hutcheson on the Psychology of Moral Motivation’
Problems of Reason: Kant in Context. Edited by Antonino Falduto. Kant-Studien Ergänzungshefte. De Gruyter. *under review
Argues against a widespread view in the literature that Kant’s theory of moral motivation has important features in common with Hume’s. Instead, I propose that Francis Hutcheson is the more appropriate influence in this regard, but that the differences between their views are more important than their similarities.
‘Moral Philosophy from Wolff to Kant’
The Oxford Handbook of German Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century. Edited by Corey W. Dyck. Oxford University Press.
Provides an overview of major themes and figures in German language moral philosophy from Wolff and Kant, covering authors such as C.A. Crusius, G.F. Meier, Christian Garve, C. F. Gellert, and J.G. Sulzer.
‘Moral Necessity and (Im)Possibility from Leibniz to Kant’
Lexicon Philosophicum: International Journal for the History of Texts and Ideas. Special issue in celebration of Kant’s 300th birthday.
Sketches the way in which Wolff, Baumgarten, Crusius, Meier, and Kant understood obligation and moral (im)permissibility in decidedly modal terms, namely in terms of moral necessity, moral possibility, and moral impossibility.
‘Locke and Popular Philosophy: Feder, Tittel, and the rejection of a priori Cognition’
Rethinking Enlightenment: The Reception of John Locke in Germany. Invited contribution to a conference and planned edited volume organized/edited by Thomas Ahnert, Lore Knapp, and Konstantin Pollok.
Provides an account of the reception of Locke’s philosophy by two of the most important ‘popular philosophers’ in late eighteenth-century German philosophy: J.G.H. Feder and G.A. Tittel.
‘Rehberg’s Moral Theory’
August Wilhelm Rehberg (1757–1836): Enlightenment Between Critique and Tradition. Invited contribution to a conference and planned edited volume organized/edited by Gabriel Rivero and Stefan Klingner.
Sketches A.W. Rehberg’s moral philosophy, as presented in his 1787 Ueber das Verhältniß der Metaphysik zu der Religion (On the Relation of Metaphysics to Religion), and which he lays out by heavily engaging with Kant’s moral philosophy.
Reference Works and Popular Writing:
‘Kant and Race’
Oxford Bibliographies: Philosophy
Provides a selective bibliography of sources to help readers navigate the literature on Kant’s racism and theory of race, and their relation to his philosophical system.