About Me
I discovered philosophy as an
undergraduate at Lawrence
University. I earned my PhD in philosophy from the University of
Massachusetts at Amherst, where my dissertation was directed
by Fred Feldman. While
in graduate school I spent a year at the Center for Philosophy of
Religion at the University of Notre Dame. I've taught
philosophy at DePauw since
the fall of 1999. You can see what some of my students have said
about me here.
I hold a robust form of moral realism according to which (i) moral
properties are sui generis, not reducible to other kinds
of properties and (ii) objective morality requires no foundation
external to itself. I explain this view and defend it against
various challenges in Robust
Ethics: The Metaphysics and Epistemology of Godless Normative
Realism (Oxford 2014). In 2018 I participated in a debate about the
foundation of morality with prominent Christian philosopher William
Lane Craig.
In recent years I've become increasingly interested in psychology
and its connections with philosophy. For example, in a recent paper
I argue that the presence of psychopaths in the world presents a
serious problem for the divine command theory, and in a chapter for
the book Humility
I draw on work in positive psychology to develop a secular account
of humility.
But maybe you're here because you want to see what I look like.
Let's have a look at this self-important knob who made a website
about himself, you may be thinking. Well, in my own mind, I'm sort
of a cross between Brad Pitt and Frankenstein's Monster. Some
people say that I kind of look like this guy from the TV show
"Castle", or that actor from the film "The Mummy" (and also that
much better film "With Honors"):
A friend of mine makes fun of me by saying that I look like
newscaster Brian Williams:
For the disappointing reality, just do a Google image search on my
name.
Of course, maybe you're here because you want to know something
personal about me. You want a glimpse into my soul. But did you
really think I would post a glimpse of my soul on the internet???
Still, since you've clicked and scrolled this far, I suppose I
should give you something. So I give you this: I really enjoy
1980's "hair
metal" music. I met my wife at this bar in Chicago at a concert
featuring the 80's band The
Outfield. And my view of the universe is pretty much
captured by the opening
lines of the first chapter Douglas Adams's book The
Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and this cartoon:
