I am interested in the processes through which social subjects and citizens are formed. A central lens I use in analyzing these processes is social reproduction theory, which critically examines the generation and maintenance of persons in their existing social relations through care and socialization – from cooking and cleaning to love and education.

In my dissertation, A Systematic Political Philosophy of Education, I focus on our system of schooling and propose repositioning philosophy of education as central to political philosophy. I argue that the two disciplines have become unmoored. This unmooring is not only historically peculiar – think of the centrality of education to politics from Plato and Rousseau to Dewey – but conceptually fraught and politically deleterious. My dissertation works towards a reunification by reconstructing the main approaches to education (liberal, conservative, democratic) as systematic political theories. I argue that each of these theories faces serious obstacles to realizing their aims for education due to an incomplete or flawed social ontology. Turning to critical theories of education as a potential corrective, I find their social ontological assumptions much more promising but their normative vision lacking. In light of these critiques, I propose an original systematic theory of education that seeks to address three central problems of our contemporary systems: alienation, commodification, and fragmentation.

I have published a number of pieces on merit and meritocracy. Much recent literature is critical of the ‘myth’, ‘trap’, and ‘tyranny’ of merit. I partly agree with these authors that we should be suspicious of our present practices and understandings of meritocracy. However, I believe we need to clarify and more carefully articulate the targets of our critiques. In my paper “Two concepts of meritocracy: telic and procedural” (Journal of Political Ideologies, 2024; online 2021) I show that far from being a standalone substantive ideal, merit is an open-ended principle that necessarily attaches to other conceptions of justice and the good. As a result, meritocracy forms a spectrum between a telic and a procedural pole. I further develop this idea in a recent chapter, “Merit as a Distributive Justice Principle” (Handbook of Equality of Opportunity, 2024) , and show how a novel reconceptualization of meritocracy can shed light on contemporary affirmative action debates. You can find an abridged version of my ideas about merit in my “Rethinking Meritocracy” piece for Ideology, Theory, Practice.

My work in social ontology critically examines the functioning of social structures and systems with an eye to possibilities for social change. I am currently working on a paper entitled “What Is a Social ‘Logic’? Disentangling the Logic(s) of Capitalism”. Social theorists invoke the idea of ‘logics’ to describe a number of different aspects of our social world. One common use of the term can be found in the Marxian and critical theory traditions, where the notion of a ‘logic of capitalism’ is used to explain the workings of our social system and make predictions about its evolution and the possibility of change. This ‘logic of capitalism’ is understood as in some sense foundational or primary and contrasted with other competing logics that it determines or shape, e.g. the logic of care, the logic of solidarity, the logic of democracy. However, claims about the ontological primacy of the logic of capitalism are difficult to assess due to the underlying ambiguity of the concept of a ‘logic’. In this paper I argue that we should distinguish between three types of logics, corresponding to social practices, structures, and systems. My taxonomy shows the question of whether ‘the logic of capitalism’ is primary or determines the other logics to be ill-posed and underspecified.

In a paper coauthored with Sally Haslanger, “Feminist Metaphysics and Gendered Subjects“ (forthcoming, Zeitschrift für die Didaktik der Philosophie und Ethik), we explain the philosophical and pedagogical importance of feminist metaphysics by articulating three central areas of contemporary concern: i) how to conceptualize sex and gender; ii) the formation of social subjects; and iii) social ontology, especially social practices, structures, and systems.

I am also particularly interested in social pathologies such as alienation, reification, and ideology. One question I am currently focusing on is to what extent these phenomena are better understood as first-order features of our social worlds or as second-order problems with agents’ consciousness and orientations towards the world.

Exploring the ethics of public policy in education, I have co-authored a cycle of papers with Jeremy Kingston Cynamon on the topic of educational fragmentation. Fragmentation is the pattern of breaking up social practices and institutions into tiers that divide and hierarchically organize participants into distinct social groups. Our first paper “The Injustices of School District Fragmentation” (Power and Education, 2022) explores the normative shortcomings of the U.S. system of fragmenting the distribution of education through districts. Our second article, “Revoke the Charters: A Critical Reevaluation of Charter Schools” (Polity, 2023) examines the problem of fragmenting a public school system into traditional public schools and charters. Our third paper in the fragmentation cycle (under review), focuses on the growing practice of homeschooling.

Another area in which I have examined the socially embedded nature of agency is scientific inquiry and technological development. Together with Eliza Wells, I am working on a paper entitled “Social Philosophy for Tech Ethics Pedagogy” based on our experience co-directing the Experiential Ethics program at MIT. We resist the methodological and normative individualism that characterizes most ethics of technology. Instead, we emphasize how social norms, practices, and institutions constrain and enable the agency of scientists and technology developers. This paper grows out of our efforts designing an expanded, more socially and politically engaged version of the course. With empirical data from evaluations over the past two years, we show that this pedagogical focus improves students' ability to identify normative dimensions of real-world situations in science and technology, as well as critically advocate for ethical decisions.