B.A., Philosophy, University of West Georgia, summa cum laude

Capstone: “Epicureanism about Alzheimer’s: The Constitution View, Existence Requirements, and Hope”

Primary: Social Epistemology, Feminist Philosophy, Philosophy of Sexuality, Allyship, Social Justice

Secondary: Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of Race, Sexual Ethics, Metaphilosophy, Philosophy of Disability, Philosophy of Religion

Here’s a list of some current works-in-progress:

Main projects:

• Allyship as Friendship: Allies are valuable parts of social justice movements for marginalized and oppressed peoples, but the nature of allyship is underexamined in philosophy. In this project, I aim to develop an account of allyship as a form of friendship that involves three components: an epistemic component (learning about the conditions about those you are allied with), a character component (scrutinizing one’s self and attuning one’s attentional patterns to injustices against those you are allied with), and an action component (speaking up for and assisting those you are allied with). The upshot of these components is that true allyship requires more than most current accounts of allyship suggest. The project will also look into the normative standards for each of these components to address the question of how to be a good ally. Finally, the project examines what our attitudes should be towards allies that fall short in some ways.
• Narrative Injustice: In this project, I aim to conceptualize a form of epistemic injustice called “narrative injustice.” Narrative injustice occurs when the unjust distribution of hermeneutical resources prevents a marginalized agent from having the same degree of freedom in creating a narrative identity as a non-marginalized agent. This can occur either because of the internalization of stereotypes and controlling images or because others are unwilling to accept the agent’s self-conception. The project would also aim to think about ways to combat narrative injustice, particularly in thinking through the value of producing/reading autobiographies and pride movements for challenging the internalization of stereotypes and the perpetuation of controlling images.

Philosophy of Science projects:

• A Critique of Pornography Studies in Evolutionary Psychology: Sexual Strategies Theory (SST) is a thesis within evolutionary psychology which posits that men and women have evolved to have different sexual desires based on past evolutionary pressures in the Pleistocene epoch. One of the pieces of evidence that SST theorists point to in support of SST is data that suggests men and women have different tastes in and for pornography, and they suggest that this reflects the differing evolved sexual desires between the sexes. In this paper, I argue that these conclusions are characterized by a litany of methodological errors and dubious background assumptions which, when made explicit, significantly undermine the ability of these experiments to provide support for SST. I then connect these issues to other feminist criticisms of evolutionary psychology and suggest that the research program fails to embrace (what Helen Longino calls) “transformative criticism.” As a result, I argue that the SST community functions as an epistemic echo chamber and requires serious reform to its intellectual climate.
• Science’s Replication Crisis and Toxic Epistemic Environments: In this paper, I develop the concept of an epistemically toxic environment. An environment is epistemically toxic when structural features of that environment prevent even an epistemically virtuous agent from reliably achieving some epistemic good (true beliefs, justification, knowledge, etc.) relative to some specific domain. In the absence of these features, then the epistemically virtuous agent would be able to reliably achieve these epistemic goods. Sometimes, these environments are built for malicious purposes, such as conspiracy theorist echo chambers. Other times, relatively benign decisions and features can add up to create an epistemically toxic environment. This paper focuses on the latter kind. I argue that the replication crisis in science and several aspects of popular science journalism cause popular science journalism, particularly in reporting on the social sciences, to be a toxic epistemic environment. Because popular scientific journalism focuses on interesting, novel findings, and these findings are the ones most susceptible to the replication crisis, then even epistemically virtuous readers are prone to develop false scientific beliefs because of reading popular scientific journalism. I conclude by offering several suggestions for how to reform science journalism to address the replication crisis and help improve the popular science epistemic environment.

Religious Studies projects:

• Linguistic Hijacking and Hermeneutic Priming in the ‘God’s Not Dead’ Series: In this paper, I argue that the God’s Not Dead series functions as Christian nationalist propaganda via the use of two forms of epistemic manipulation: linguistic hijacking and hermeneutic priming. Linguistic hijacking is the process by which majority groups co-opt a linguistic resource developed by a marginalized community to diminish the political effectiveness of the linguistic resource for the marginalized community (Anderson 2020). Hermeneutic priming is a related tactic, but instead of co-opting the term for their own sake, involves the majority group priming those in their group to associate the term with negative connotations that do not accurately reflect the marginalized use of the term but, nonetheless, causes the term to lose political effectiveness. Both forms of epistemic manipulation in the film series involve the development of right-wing Christian rhetoric which positions Christians as a persecuted minority and evokes a call to political activism. While the series has always contained some level of political commentary, this paper primarily focuses on the rhetoric developed in the last two entries in the series: God’s Not Dead: We The People (2021) and God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust (2024) as these films focus exclusively on Christians interacting with the legislature and most strongly employ the rhetoric that leads to linguistic hijacking and hermeneutic priming. This essay examines how the God’s Not Dead series represents the ways in which popular media can develop patterns of rhetoric that perpetuate certain political ideals and incentivize political actions.

“A Hermeneutical Response to Apologists and Atheists”- Aporia (Fall 2021)

“Linguistic Hijacking and Hermeneutic Priming in the God’s Not Dead Series.” Mississippi Philosophical Association: Making Philosophy Pop conference. Spring 2025.

“The Heart of Discovery: Emotions in the Scientific Endeavor.” Tennessee Philosophical Association Annual Meeting. Fall 2024.

“The Value-Free Ideal (?) of Science: Do Values Make for Bad Science?” GSSE, STEM in Society (presentation on feminist philosophy of science geared towards advanced high school students). Summer 2024.

“Because God Said So: Divine Revelation and Externalism about Knowledge.” University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign’s Graduate Philosophy Conference. Spring 2024. [Accepted].

“My Porn Preferences are not Genetic: A Critique of Pornography Research in Sexual Strategies Theory.” Boston University’s Values in Research and Researching Values Conference. Spring 2024.

“Transformative (VR) Experiences: The Epistemic and Moral Potential of Gaming in Virtual Reality.” Florida Atlantic University, 2nd Annual Philosophy of Video Games Conference. Spring 2024. [Accepted]

“A Valuable Incompatibilism: Rethinking the Rollback Argument”- Florida State University’s Free Will, Moral Responsibility, and Agency Conference. Fall 2023

“Righteous Indignation and Radical Love: An Analysis of Anger in Social Justice” -The Ohio State MAP conference, Spring 2023

“Beyond Harm Reduction: A Hermeneutic Account of Consent”- Great Lakes Philosophy Conference, Spring 2022

“A Critique of William James’ Account of Mystical Experiences”-National Conference on Undergraduate Research (Spring 2021); Georgia Undergraduate Research Collective (Fall 2020)

“Autonomy and Risk: A Defense of the Nozick Principles”-National Conference on Undergraduate Research (Spring 2021); Georgia Undergraduate Research Collective (Fall 2020)