I’m a feminist philosopher studying care from several different angles: as the basis of a distinctive approach to moral philosophy, as a social practice fraught with domination, and as a site of technological innovation.
My first book, At the Limits of Care: Feminist Ethics and Technology Relations, examines shifting practices and norms of care in the increasingly high-tech “care sector.” In it, I critically assess the view that technological integration is in some way distorting the moral value of care. Whatever its intuitive appeal, this view seems to evoke idealized portraits of caregiving which feminist care ethicists have sought to defuse. How can we know when new forms of caring relationships are less good than those to which we are accustomed? What licenses feminist ethicists to object to changing moral standards? Through the analysis of four cases of technologically mediated caregiving, I argue that we can identify distortions of care’s value without relying on a romanticized ideal of care, but that care’s ambivalence as a social practice does not ultimately undermine its moral value. I am finishing preparation of the final manuscript, which is under contract with Oxford University Press, Studies in Feminist Philosophy Series.
The book reflects my more general interests in how feminist ethicists should respond to moral change and the decidedly non-ideal conditions of our world. A paper currently under review examines tensions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to the pervasive problem of bad care, defending the need for an unachievable ideal of care. I have also written about Margaret Urban Walker’s contributions to a metaethics of care and criticisms of theory-building among feminist ethicists.
My work in feminist bioethics considers a range of emerging technologies including socially assistive robots, telemedicine and newer direct-to-consumer telehealth, as well as direct-to consumer genetic testing, each of which is impacted by the current AI boom. My published work also has also addressed methodological questions surrounding the goals of relational theorizing in bioethics and medical humanities curricula for undergraduate medical education.
I became a Presidential Scholar at the Hastings Center following my postdoc there and I remain involved with the Center as a grant collaborator. Alongside Jennifer James of UCSF, I am developing and co-editing a series on Health and Incarceration for the Hastings Center Report. I serve as the Treasurer for the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, for whom I also co-edit a scholarly blog.
I live in Philadelphia with my spouse and our small zoo of two cats and one dog. The cover art on my page is by William Christenberry, visual artist and chronicler of rural Alabama, where my much of my family is from.
My first book, At the Limits of Care: Feminist Ethics and Technology Relations, examines shifting practices and norms of care in the increasingly high-tech “care sector.” In it, I critically assess the view that technological integration is in some way distorting the moral value of care. Whatever its intuitive appeal, this view seems to evoke idealized portraits of caregiving which feminist care ethicists have sought to defuse. How can we know when new forms of caring relationships are less good than those to which we are accustomed? What licenses feminist ethicists to object to changing moral standards? Through the analysis of four cases of technologically mediated caregiving, I argue that we can identify distortions of care’s value without relying on a romanticized ideal of care, but that care’s ambivalence as a social practice does not ultimately undermine its moral value. I am finishing preparation of the final manuscript, which is under contract with Oxford University Press, Studies in Feminist Philosophy Series.
The book reflects my more general interests in how feminist ethicists should respond to moral change and the decidedly non-ideal conditions of our world. A paper currently under review examines tensions between ideal and non-ideal approaches to the pervasive problem of bad care, defending the need for an unachievable ideal of care. I have also written about Margaret Urban Walker’s contributions to a metaethics of care and criticisms of theory-building among feminist ethicists.
My work in feminist bioethics considers a range of emerging technologies including socially assistive robots, telemedicine and newer direct-to-consumer telehealth, as well as direct-to consumer genetic testing, each of which is impacted by the current AI boom. My published work also has also addressed methodological questions surrounding the goals of relational theorizing in bioethics and medical humanities curricula for undergraduate medical education.
I became a Presidential Scholar at the Hastings Center following my postdoc there and I remain involved with the Center as a grant collaborator. Alongside Jennifer James of UCSF, I am developing and co-editing a series on Health and Incarceration for the Hastings Center Report. I serve as the Treasurer for the International Network on Feminist Approaches to Bioethics, for whom I also co-edit a scholarly blog.
I live in Philadelphia with my spouse and our small zoo of two cats and one dog. The cover art on my page is by William Christenberry, visual artist and chronicler of rural Alabama, where my much of my family is from.