Personal Info

My philosophical interests have centred principally on questions of value in both ethics and aesthetics. One special focus has been ‘moral epistemology’, addressing questions concerning the nature and origins of our moral values. I am particularly concerned with questions of this kind lying at the intersection of philosophy and psychology. As an undergraduate (BA, Philosophy, UC Berkeley, 1980) I read, inter alia, the ‘armchair’ moral epistemologies and aesthetic theories of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and Heidegger, and as a post-graduate at Oxford (D.Phil, 1989) this interest developed in new directions, eventually leading to in my Metaphor and Moral Experience (OUP, 2000). My projects at present include: articles on moral psychopathology, a book on the epistemic value of conceptual art and editing a volume of essays on Plato’s aesthetics (for Palgrave MacMillan, 2009) .