Research

Refereed Journal Publications

Moral Injury, Despair, and Climate Justice Obligations
2026. Hypatia. Advance online publication.

Moral Injury, Despair, and Climate Justice Obligations | Hypatia | Cambridge Core

A despairing agent might object to climate obligations by framing them as too demanding to be morally required because they give rise to burdensome consequences of despair, like depression. This objection can be refuted on the grounds that it is morally wrong. However, when it is understood as symptomatic of moral injury, an alternative response prioritizing moral repair is illuminated. I consider how the virtue of epistemic humility can promote tasks for repair, like attentiveness to symptoms of moral injury. I see this virtue as a basis for an active form of care for others and the self that resists temptations to refer to this objection.

Doing Our Best Feasibility Constraints and Duties of Justice in The Climate Crisis Era
2024. Social Philosophy Today 40: 159-172.
Open access penultimate draft available here.

Doing Our Best: Feasibility Constraints and Duties of Justice in The Climate Crisis Era – Volume 40, 2024

Can agents be duty-bound towards ends that are infeasible? Some scholars have endorsed a “feasibility constraint” on justice and answered that we cannot be duty-bound to bring about the infeasible. In this paper, I question whether the feasibility constraint on justice should still be endorsed and whether we are duty-bound to pursue some aims regardless of this constraint. I ask: Can an ethical agent be duty-bound to work towards bringing about a state of affairs that is desirable but infeasible? I consider the climate crisis: climate justice may require us to work towards ends that may be infeasible, such as maintaining global climate warming below 1.5°C or mitigating climate change in a way that treats all people affected fairly. I argue that we may be duty-bound or obliged to work towards some desirable goals when faced with the infeasible and conclude that we should reject feasibility constraints on climate justice.

Academic Presentations

Refereed

“The Commodification of Despair in a (Climate) Crisis of Hope.” 
Philosophy, Politics, and Economics Society London Meeting, King’s College London, July 16-18, 2025.

“Positive Appraisals, Circumstances of Futility, and Disregard.” 
Canadian Philosophical Association Annual Meeting, George Brown College Toronto, June 1-4, 2025.

“Love as a Practice of Sustainable Design.” With Sophia Whicher.
By Design and Disaster Conference, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, May 8-10, 2025.

“On Resisting Failures of Appraisal Respect.” 
Association for Practical and Professional Ethics Annual Conference, online, March 28, 2025.

“Doing Our Best: Feasibility Constraints and Duties of Justice in The Climate Crisis Era.”
Mississippi Philosophical Association Annual Conference, Starkville, Mississippi, March 25, 2023.

Comments

Julianne Mann’s “Scenes of Anthropos: Environmental Colonialism and the Violence of “Human” Praxis.” 
American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting, New York City, January 8-11, 2025.

Abraham Matthew’s “Forgive, Because You Were Forgiven.” 
Annual Toronto Graduate Philosophy Conference, University of Toronto, October 18-19, 2024.

Jonah Dunch’s “Anger and Remorse.” 
Annual Toronto Graduate Philosophy Conference, University of Toronto, November 3-4, 2023.

Public Facing Presentations

Invited

“Hope, Despair, and Climate Action.” With Zachary Grey.
Being and Becoming’ s Curiosity Cafê Workshop, Toronto, July 9, 2024.

“Food Security Response COVID-19 in New Brunswick.” With Jill Van Horne.
FLEdGE Student Symposium, Laurier Centre for Sustainable Food Systems, online, November 18, 2020.