I'm an assistant professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University.
My paper “Faith Because of Evil” recently won the Plantinga Prize. It was based on the inaugural PRÉCIS lecture at Princeton, which I gave in 2024.
I'm at work on a book, tentatively The Falling Light: Extrinsic Final Value in the Axiology of Theism (Routledge).
My work is about one idea explored in many domains:
We create meaning in life by loving the good.
In theory and application...
THEORY
Loving—emotional experience: Why are emotions the deepest, fullest responses we can give to what matters? (Because each emotion is an icon of its value.)
The good—extrinsic final value: Do objects and people gain value of their own in relation to other things that matter? (Yes, all over the place.)
Meaning—life’s narrativity: Does it matter to meaning whether our lives are certain kinds of stories? (Yes, but the story must belong to the world’s structure.)
APPLICATION
Human dignity: How can we best account for the dignity of all, including persons with severe cognitive disabilities? (Only by appealing to theism.)
Environmental value: What value does the natural world have for its own sake? (Lots of it. You should be sad about the lettuces and tardigrades you destroy to sustain your life.)
Artificial minds: Should we shape our lives around a hope for the techno-optimist's future in which we share a social world with conscious machines? (No.)
Other-worldly hope: Should we shape our lives around a hope for an afterlife in which all persons and indeed all living things—including the tardigrades—have been restored and made whole? (Yes.)
The axiology of theism: Should we want God to exist? (Yes, very much.)
FAITH BECAUSE OF EVIL
forthcoming in Oxford Studies in Philosophy of Religion
ARBITRARY NARRATIVES
forthcoming in The Australasian Journal of Philosophy
THE EPISTEMIC SIGNIFICANCE OF EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE
Emotion Review, 2020