I am a political philosopher working as a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and IR at the University of York. Before starting at York, I took a PhD from the UCL Department of Philosophy and then held a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at Cambridge.
Recently, my main research focus has been on the role of science, broadly understood as including scientific advisors to government, scientific researchers, and science journalists, in a liberal democracy. I am working on a monograph, which is under contract with Oxford University Press, developing different but complementary obligations for those three kinds of scientific actors, s…
I am a political philosopher working as a senior lecturer in the Department of Politics and IR at the University of York. Before starting at York, I took a PhD from the UCL Department of Philosophy and then held a three-year postdoctoral fellowship at Cambridge.
Recently, my main research focus has been on the role of science, broadly understood as including scientific advisors to government, scientific researchers, and science journalists, in a liberal democracy. I am working on a monograph, which is under contract with Oxford University Press, developing different but complementary obligations for those three kinds of scientific actors, so as to make scientific practice compatible with public reason liberalism. The starting point of much of my analysis will be the idea that science is inescapably value-laden. In fact, the obligations mentioned above will double as an original response to the question (which philosophers of science are now grappling with) of which values should be allowed to guide science. My goal there will be to suggest that public reason liberalism can do better than existing responses to the which values question at meeting the very concerns animating them.
Also, I am in the process of completing a research project, jointly conducted with Alasia Nuti, about the theoretical issues raised by the task of fighting antidemocratic and illiberal views in society - a project that has again been largely led from within public reason liberalism. Among other outputs, this project led to the publication of an Oxford University Press monograph in 2024.
Finally, my interest in public reason extends beyond science and democratic backsliding. Starting with my PhD dissertation, I have applied public reason liberalism to a range of issues in the political philosophy of public policy, with special attention to health care resource allocation policy and the role of bureaucrats in public reasoning.