Research statement

My primary research programme explores self-control, agency and decision-making in our changing scientific landscape.

In my dissertation, ”An access theory of self-control: Essays on self-control, ADHD, and stimulant medication”, I defend a value-deflationist definition of self-control, according to which self-control is that which is enacted to align one’s behaviour with intention in the face of competing motivation. or my account, self-control is defined by its behavioural function, not by its reliance on any specific cognitive or neural process. As a result, self-control can be realized by a large range of functionally equivalent processes. Not all self-control processes are equally available for all agents, however. Some processes that are heavily reliant on executive functioning, such as inhibition and rehearsal of reasons, are unavailable for agents with executive dysfunction. For other self-control processes, social and economic constraints delimit their availability. I analyse individual differences in self-control in terms of differences in access to self-control behaviours, articulating criteria for access to self-control and demonstrating how epistemic and practical constraints contingently modulate access to self-control in a manner that results in aggravated individual differences in self-control. 

As an extension of my ecological approach to self-control, I have come to appreciate the complexity of how people come to make decisions in complex environments. One upshot of this has been my ongoing research in the Nudging for Climate research consortium on the ethics and underlying mechanisms of nudging, a form of behavioural public policy that steers citizen behaviour by altering the salience of certain cues in the environment.

Understanding action selection is foundational for philosophical debates on topics as diverse as decision theory, behavioral economics, delayed gratification, and freedom of the will. Sometimes action follows a conscious decision; at other times, behaviors are selected without a decision having taken place, such as when habits or environmental cues cause us to act. In both philosophy and empirical sciences, attention and action selection are typically studied in isolation from each other; exceptions to the rule exist but are few. A future direction for my research is to inquire into the connection of attention and action by exploring the role of attentional processes in option generation.

My second, overlapping research programme examines causal, conceptual and metaphysical issues in complex traits, particularly within psychiatry. From 2016 to 2019, I participated as Junior Investigator in the Genetics and Human Agency research project. Within that project, I investigated genetic explanations of ADHD and their import for assessments of moral and criminal responsibility. Studying the biological causation of human behavior within GHA has left me with a sustained interest in thinking about gene-environment interaction in the context of individual differences in complex traits. I have also inquired into the metaphysics of psychopathology, wishing to clarify the ways in which social causes interact with individual biology in the ontology of mental disorder.

I have a further interest in the ethics of emerging technologies in healthcare. I have recently worked on the promises and concerns raised by the prospective use of AI and big data in healthcare, particularly for the off-label use of stimulant medication.