The Spotlight Series

What is your current area of research?

My current research is on economic justice, I am interested in determining what kinds of work and economic relations persons are entitled to as a matter of fairness. A significant part of this project is about the normative value of meaningful work, but I am also concerned with other questions including the social relations encouraged in and fostered by market exchange, how we can best explain economic power, and what is at stake with current technological developments that are likely to radically alter the nature of work in the future.

What question or challenge were you setting out to address when you started this work?

The challenge I set out to address was how substantive conclusions about economic justice could be made consistent with liberal neutrality. What I believe liberalism fundamentally gets right is the insistence that political principles and decisions can only be justified when they are acceptable to those subjected to them. But because persons reasonably disagree on questions about work's relationship to the good, then it is often assumed that liberalism must remain silent on whether certain economic orders would be preferable from the standpoint of justice.

My project is arguing that this is not so. The crux of my account is that work's inherent connection to social interdependencies gives it 'political' value, thereby providing us reasons to ensure certain kinds of economic relations exist.

Share a turning point or defining moment in your work as a philosophical researcher?

I don't think I have a point like this in my professional career, but looking back on it now, the late-night conversations I would have with my father as a teenager about God and religion were formative for me. They gave me the itch for philosophy, even though now in my research I am interested in different questions.

Briefly, what excites you about your research?

That I am contributing (in my own very small way) to our understanding of what a just world would look like, and that this can help bring such a world about. I'm a hopeless optimist on this score!

What do you like to do when you aren`t working?

I like being outside and am often running or on a hike with my four-legged friend Buddy. I also enjoy cooking, playing guitar, and playing board games with friends.

What are you currently reading?

I'm currently reading the novel Reamde by Neil Stephenson, and for non-fiction I'm reading The Last Emperor of Mexico by Edward Shawcross, which follows the absurd story of Maximilian I of Mexico.

Do you have a favourite movie?

I don't think so, and I am more of a TV person. But I'm always up to watch The Lord of the Rings trilogy or Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory as those movies bring back warm memories from my childhood.

Is there a work of art that inspires you?

I'm not sure about 'inspire,' but the album The Lonesome Crowded West by Modest Mouse has always resonated with me.

What would people be surprised to find out about you?

Perhaps that I enjoy playing the game GeoGuessr, where the task is to guess where you are from Google street view. This means I have memorised some very strange and useless information. For instance, I can tell you the difference between Spanish and Portuguese road bollards, in which regions of Serbia you are more likely to see corn crops growing, and how possum guards on electricity poles look different in Tasmania than they do in other parts of Australia. Or maybe that I began an engineering and physics degree, before promptly dropping out and travelling to America to backpack along the length of Route 66.

May 2024