I am an Associate Professor of Philosophy in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA. I am also a Research Associate at Oxford University’s Institute for Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict (ELAC) in Oxford, UK. Prior to my current positions, I was a Resident Research Fellow at the Stockdale Center for Ethical Leadership in Annapolis, MD. I previously taught philosophy at the University of Connecticut and the US Air Force Academy.

My publication and research profile is intentionally broad and I aim for my work to have interdisciplinary relevance and application. I have published primarily in applied ethics and ethics more broadly, but also in political philosophy, metaphysics, Plato, and human rights, among other areas. Some of these publications have appeared in such peer-reviewed journals as Analysis, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Philosophia, Journal of Military Ethics, Public Affairs Quarterly, Journal of Human Rights, and Epoché. I’ve published multiple books with Oxford University Press, Palgrave Macmillan, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, and Routledge. I have also written widely in popular media such as the New York Times, the Guardian, 3 Quarks Daily, War on the Rocks, among other outlets, and I have appeared on multiple local and national NPR affiliates, the BBC World Service, and other media outlets.

PERSONAL WEBSITE

PUBLICATIONS 

The Bounds of Defense: Killing, Moral Responsibility, and War (Oxford University Press, in production, March 2023).

Outsourcing Duty: The Moral Exploitation of the American Soldier, with Michael Robillard (Oxford University Press, February 2022).

Who Should Die? The Ethics of Killing in War, with Ryan Jenkins and Michael Robillard (Oxford University Press, 2017).

Binary Bullets: The Ethics of Cyberwar, with Adam Henschke and Fritz Allhoff (Oxford University Press, 2016).

Killing bin Laden: A Moral Analysis (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Responsibilities to Protect: Perspectives in Theory and Practice, with David Whetham (Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 2015).

Military Ethics and Emerging Technologies, with Timothy J. Demy and George R. Lucas (Routledge, 2014).

Opposing Perspectives on the Drone Debate (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014).

Killing By Remote Control: The Ethics of an Unmanned Military (Oxford University Press, May 2012).

"The Supererogatory Moral Risks of Military Service," Individualization of War Project, forthcoming from Oxford University Press.

“Review Essay of In Defense of Gun Control by Hugh LaFollette,” with Bart Kennedy, Criminal Law and Philosophy, April 2021.

“The Moral Exploitation of Soldiers,” with Michael Robillard, Public Affairs Quarterly 30, no. 2 (April 2016): 171 – 196.

“Autonomous Machines, Moral Judgment, and Acting for the Right Reasons,” with Duncan Purves and Ryan Jenkins, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 18, no. 4 (August 2015): 851-872.

“Assessment, Proportionality, and Justice in War,” with Russell Muirhead, in Assessing War: The Challenge of Measuring Success and Failure, edited by Leo J. Blanken, Jason J. Lepore, and Hy Rothstein (Georgetown University Press, 2015).

“Moral Cyber Weapons,” with Dorothy E. Denning, in The Ethics of Information Warfare, edited by Luciano Floridi and Mariarosaria Taddeo (Springer Philosophy & Engineering Technology Series, April 2014).

“Active Cyber Defense: Applying Air Defense to the Cyber Domain,” with Dorothy E. Denning, in Cyber Analogies, edited by John Arquilla and Emily O. Goldman, Technical Report sponsored by United States Cyber Command, (Monterey, CA: Department of Defense Information Operations Center for Research, Naval Postgraduate School, 2014).

“Defensive Interrogational Torture and Epistemic Limitations” Public Affairs Quarterly, Vol 27, no. 4 (October 2013): 311-340.

“Revisionist Just War Theory and the Real World: A Cautiously Optimistic Proposal,” in Routledge Handbook of Ethics and War: Just War in the 21st Century, edited by Fritz Allhoff, Adam Henschke, & Nick Evans, (Routledge Press, 2013).

Guest Editor: Journal of Military Ethics, Vol. 12, no. 1, 2013; Special Issue: “Cyberwar and Ethics.”

“Walking the Tightrope of Just War,” Analysis 71 (July 2011): 533-544.

“Moral Predators: The Duty to Employ Uninhabited Aerial Vehicles,” Journal of Military Ethics 9, no. 4 (December 2010): 342-368.

“Rea’s Revenge and the Persistent Problem of Persistence for Realism,” Philosophia 39, no. 2 (May 2011): 375-391.

“Those Frightening Men: A New Interpretation of Plato’s Battle of Gods and Giants,” Epoche 16, no. 2 (Spring 2012): 217 – 232.

“The Normative Structure of Human Rights: a review of James Griffin’s On Human Rights,” (essay-length review article), Journal of Human Rights 10, no. 1, (February 2011): 112-119.

“A Review of James Griffin’s On Human Rights,” (with Paul Bloomfield), Analysis 71, no. 1 (2011): 195 – 197.