Interesting experiences, Boring ones, and Experiential Value
My most recent research explores the value of our experiential states with a particular emphasis on the value of interesting experiences. I believe the interesting is an intrinsic, prudential value–that means it’s good for everyone to experience.
This work stems from recent collaborative work with psychologist Shigehiro Oishi (funded by the Templeton Foundation), that shows that people value psychologically richness, which arises from experiences that present variety, interestingness, depth, unexpectedness, induce perspective-change, and stimulates a range of emotions.
Some of the questions I’m currently pursuing include: What kinds of experiences deliver prudential value? How does the broadening of experiential value change the way we understand value at at the margins of life? And how do we situate experiential value within a more comprehensive understanding of well-being?
Happiness, Well-Being, and Virtue
My 2021 book, The Philosophy of Happiness: An Interdisciplinary Introduction provides a comprehensive discussion of the dominant trends and concerns with respect to happiness research. My first book, Eudaimonic Ethics (2014), explores eudaimonia from a psychological perspective, and develops an empirically informed approach to virtue ethics. My work here draws significantly on the self-determination theory within psychology and engages with interdisciplinary work on the nature of agency, behavior, and self-regulation.
I’m also co-editor of The Routledge Companion to Virtue Ethics, a comprehensive exploration of virtue ethics covering both Western and Non-Western analyses of virtue, as well as its contemporary applications.
Hume’s Moral Psychology
I also have a longstanding interested in Hume’s moral psychology and have published several articles exploring his analysis of pride, its influence on moral motivation, and its role in the development of justice. My latest paper uses Buddhist views of the practical self as a foil to explore Hume’s conception of a practical self and the degree to which this depends on forming attachments to others.