The philosophy of autobiography. Value theory. The self. The ethics of war. The philosophy of David Hume. The philosophy of John Stuart Mill. Literary form in philosophy.

I trained as a moral and political philosopher, and in that guise I have published a number of articles and a book, Living Without Domination. My more recent work is in the philosophy of autobiography, which I understand as a way of connecting questions about the good, selfhood, narrative, self-knowledge, the first person, life in time, experience, and the uses of literary form. I am particularly interested in the lives and autobiographies of ascetics—soldiers, monks, hermits, solo travellers—as ways of addressing these questions. As part of this work I have published articles in journals including Inquiry, Ratio, Res Publica, and The Journal of Applied Philosophy, and in the Blackwell Companion to John Stuart Mill. I am currently writing a book about autobiography, narrative, and self-realization, under the working title Good Lives.

Michaelmas 2016:

• PPR.450 What is Philosophy?
• PPR.312 Seminar in Contemporary Moral Philosophy

Lent 2016:

• On research leave

Summer 2016:

• PHIL100 Introduction to Philosophy: Death, the Good Life, and the Self (lectures)

Apart from philosophy, I enjoy reading poetry and history, listening to jazz and other experimental music, and spending time with my wife Em and our children Hal and Ursula.