
My main area of research is in epistemology. Within
the area of epistemology I have two main projects. The
first project focuses generally on the normative aspects
of epistemology. I see epistemology as an essentially
normative enterprise, and argue that the units of evaluation
we should use are not beliefs, but rather the character
traits of the agent. This results in a virtue approach
to epistemology. This approach to epistemology can help
us to solve problems that epistemology has faced and
gives us a fresh perspective from which to look at old
debates. My virtue approach to normative issues can
also be extended to areas of applied ethics including
environmental ethics and feminism.
My second project
focuses on the ways that humans reason about probability
and their own preferences, and the limits that we
as humans might face in such reasoning. The goal here
is to use artificial systems to model human rationality.
However, cognitive science has discovered surprising
results about our inability to reason in these areas,
and we should include these limitations in our attempts
to adequately model human rationality.
Recent publication:
“What Nozick Did for Decision Theory” (with
David Schmidtz) Midwest Studies in Philosophy, Volume
27, Issue 1, August 2004, pp. 282-294.