I'm an Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Before moving to Jerusalem, I was a Postdoctoral Junior Research Fellow in Philosophy at Corpus Christi College, at the University of Cambridge. I hold a BA from Harvard and an MA and joint degree PhD from the Committee on Social Thought and the Philosophy Department at the University of Chicago.
I'm thrilled to announce the completion of my book What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice, co-authored with Rachel Wiseman and forthcoming in June, 2024. The book investigates childbearing ambivalence and the philosophical resources available to overcome it. Peeling back the layers of resistance, What Are Children For? argues that when we make the individual decision whether or not to have children we confront a profound philosophical question, that of the goodness of our form life itself. How can we justify perpetuating human life given the catastrophic harm and suffering of which we are always at once both victims and perpetrators? To meet this challenge we must, we argue, uncover a capacity to grasp the fundamental goodness of human life—not only theoretically but practically in the actual lives we lead today.
At the same time, I remain dedicated to my more traditional research, which lies at the intersection of contemporary moral philosophy (metaethics and moral psychology) and the history of moral philosophy, especially Kant and post-Kantian German Idealism (but also Aristotle and Heidegger). The central question guiding my research is how best to understand the nature of our dependence on conditions that lie beyond our individual rational control and choice – our emotions, our character and other persons. My aim is to show that these forms of dependence and receptivity are not restrictions on human freedom but are rather the conditions for its realization. On the account I propose, human freedom is not the freedom to exercise control over errant emotions and dispositions of character but the freedom from having to expand one's efforts in this way.
Finally, I am an editor of The Point, a magazine of philosophical writing on politics, contemporary life, and culture, and my essays and critical reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The TLS, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, and The Point (for links, visit "Essays").
I'm thrilled to announce the completion of my book What Are Children For? On Ambivalence and Choice, co-authored with Rachel Wiseman and forthcoming in June, 2024. The book investigates childbearing ambivalence and the philosophical resources available to overcome it. Peeling back the layers of resistance, What Are Children For? argues that when we make the individual decision whether or not to have children we confront a profound philosophical question, that of the goodness of our form life itself. How can we justify perpetuating human life given the catastrophic harm and suffering of which we are always at once both victims and perpetrators? To meet this challenge we must, we argue, uncover a capacity to grasp the fundamental goodness of human life—not only theoretically but practically in the actual lives we lead today.
At the same time, I remain dedicated to my more traditional research, which lies at the intersection of contemporary moral philosophy (metaethics and moral psychology) and the history of moral philosophy, especially Kant and post-Kantian German Idealism (but also Aristotle and Heidegger). The central question guiding my research is how best to understand the nature of our dependence on conditions that lie beyond our individual rational control and choice – our emotions, our character and other persons. My aim is to show that these forms of dependence and receptivity are not restrictions on human freedom but are rather the conditions for its realization. On the account I propose, human freedom is not the freedom to exercise control over errant emotions and dispositions of character but the freedom from having to expand one's efforts in this way.
Finally, I am an editor of The Point, a magazine of philosophical writing on politics, contemporary life, and culture, and my essays and critical reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Atlantic, The TLS, The Los Angeles Review of Books, The Chronicle of Higher Education Review, and The Point (for links, visit "Essays").