I am Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Batten University in Virginia Beach, VA.  Prior to this, I lived in Flint, MI where I was Assistant Professor at Kettering University.  I work in ethics, political philosophy, and environmental law.  

 

The bulk of my work explores philosophical issues in environmental law and policy, particularly pertaining to public lands.  I've published OpEds on how to allocate the Colorado River [1] and internet access in wilderness [2], and I was recently interviewed by Politico on a likely Supreme Court case challenging national monument designations [3].  Written more for specialists, I have provided a legal interpretation of the Antiquities Act [4], a critical defense of The Wilderness Act [5], and an analysis of justice-related issues in shrinking cities such as Flint [6].  I've also done work outlining how philosophers can contribute to environmental law and policy more generally [7].  My current project is writing a book that evaluates arguments for privatizing public lands, giving federal lands to U.S. states, and returning lands to Indigenous tribes.  

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I have also done work in foundational ethics, analyzing how values differ from one another and call for different policies.  In Journal of Ethics, I used a fitting-attitude approach to distinguish intrinsic from instrumental values.  This provides a foundation for earlier publications in which I provide an account of how something can be valuable for its own sake without having an intrinsic property that makes it so [8] [9].  

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In my free time, I enjoy road/gravel cycling, swimming, running, backpacking, bikepacking, and DJ-ing house music. Surfing is my newest folly.