Selected Writing

The Crucial Assumption of Angela Davis’s Non-Ideal Moral Framework. Undergraduate coursework in philosophy, Winter 2023. A comparison of Angela Davis’s abolitionist vision of restorative justice with Kant’s retributivist view of punishment as a moral necessity. PDF

John Stuart Mill’s “On Liberty”: A Case for the Practicality of Utilitarianism in Democratic Republics. Undergraduate coursework in philosophy, Winter 2023. An analysis of Mill’s On Liberty as a political extension of his utilitarian ethics, arguing that utility provides a principled limit to state coercion in democratic societies. PDF

How can we reduce political polarization without legislation? Project proposal for a social policy-oriented think tank, Fall 2023. Proposes neuroscience education as a scalable, evidence-based strategy for reducing political polarization and partisan animosity. PDF

The (Very Real) “Illusion of Free Will”. Undergraduate coursework in neuroscience, Winter 2022. An argument against the existence of free will as something independent from uncontrollable subconscious processes, drawing on contemporary neuroscience research. PDF

The Problem with using Evolutionary Inferences in Moral Antirealism Arguments. Undergraduate coursework in philosophy, Spring 2021. A critique of Sharon Street’s Darwinian dilemma, arguing that her evolutionary premise undermines itself and cannot fully support a rejection of moral realism. PDF

Moral Luck and Manifestations of the Will. Undergraduate coursework in philosophy, Spring 2020. An overview of Thomas Nagel’s account of moral luck. PDF