Dissertation
Our happiness depends, to a great extent, on how the pursuits at the center of our lives unfold—our relationships, our careers, the projects and causes to which we devote ourselves. Yet the success of these pursuits can be uncertain, improbable, and shaped by forces beyond our control. Even with our best efforts, a marriage may end in divorce, and a professional aspiration—to become a journalist, an academic, or an artist—may never materialize. In the face of uncertainty and vulnerability to contingency, what might make it rational to commit ourselves to these pursuits? My dissertation defends the novel view that we have compelling reason to commit to a pursuit when we can secure a distinctive form of self-trust—one that encompasses trust in our judgments about the pursuit’s value, our motivations for taking it up, our capacity to carry it through, and our resilience in the face of potential failure. On this view, rational commitment is not a matter of promoting value or satisfying our desires, but of choosing on the basis of trust in our ability to form practical judgments. The result is a set of new accounts of decision-making and rational agency—accounts that move beyond idealized models and take seriously the challenge of being responsible for a life whose course we cannot fully predict or control.
Papers
An article on Kant’s account of the value of happiness is currently under review, along with another on the nature of decision-making. Please feel free to email me for drafts. I am developing projects on eudaimonism, self-concern, and the possibility of living well under the conditions of modern life.