My dissertation is called A Defense of Impermissivism. Consider two dermatologists, Dr. Smith and Dr. Jones, who work at the same dermatology practice. A patient comes in with a suspicious lesion. Both doctors agree that the lesion needs to be biopsied. But their degree of clinical suspicion is not the same. Dr. Smith thinks that the lesion is most likely benign. But Dr. Jones is on the fence: she is just as confident that it is benign as she is that it is malignant. If you think that despite their shared evidence, each doctor could nonetheless be rational in having her respective degree of confidence that the lesion is benign, then you are a permissivist. Thus, permissivism is the view that the same evidence sometimes licenses more than one rational response. In many ways, permissivism is an attractive view. It’s hard to resist the thought that two equally well-informed experts might reasonably disagree. In my dissertation, I carefully examine the details of the view and argue that despite its intuitive appeal, permissivism cannot withstand scrutiny. See my CV for the full abstract.

Here is some of my ongoing research.

Ethics and metaethics:

• “A Puzzle About Victim Blaming”

• “The Normative Force of Desire”

Epistemology:

• “Standards Everywhere”

• “Against Higher-Order Bayesianism”

• “Untangling Higher-Order Evidence”

• “Are Permissivists More Tolerant?”