About My

Research

My research, teaching, and service are committed to the promotion of intergenerational justice. Intergenerational justice demands the transformation of present injustice, through a critical and retrospective understanding of our existing systems and their structures, into future conditions of justice that are able to be sustained over time. As I understand it, justice is primarily about fostering conditions conducive for flourishing, which I see as rooted in a synergistic relationship of the following four elements: 1) human needs actualization; 2) self-development; 3) self-determination; and 4) ecosystem well-being. I understand intergenerational justice as a normative framework for advancing sustainable development.

Building on Manfred Max-Neef’s human needs framework, I take these ten needs to be fundamental: subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, idleness, creation, identity, freedom, and transcendence. Following Iris Marion Young, I broadly define self-development as developing and exercising one’s capacities, and self-determination as participating in determining one’s actions and the conditions of one’s actions. As human needs actualization, self-development, and self-determination are facilitated or inhibited by the ecosystems within which we are embedded, all three must be harmonized with present and future ecosystem well-being. Thus, sustainability must not be understood solely in scientific or technical terms, but as a deeply relational endeavor.

In order to advance my commitments to intergenerational justice and sustainable development, my scholarship unfolds along three distinct, yet intersecting, trajectories:

  1. Critical: This strand interrogates the historical and structural conditions that produce and sustain intergenerational injustice. It draws from social and political theory, decolonial theory, and environmental justice scholarship to analyze how dominant paradigms – such as neoliberalism and its economic growth imperative – undermine both human and ecological flourishing. This critical lens is essential for diagnosing the root causes of unsustainable and unjust practices.
  2. Normative/Action-Guiding: Building on my critical analysis, my second trajectory offers action guiding normative frameworks. It develops principles rooted in intergenerational justice, translating abstract values into concrete guidance for institutions, educators, and policymakers. The primary question driving this strand of my research is: What should sustainable development look like when informed by a commitment to intergenerational justice?
  3. Praxis Projects: My praxis-oriented work brings theory into direct engagement with community-based efforts to address various obstacles to flourishing, including, for example, projects committed to food justice and educational equity. These projects are community-engaged and collaborative, and premised upon a participatory process in which communities diagnose existing obstacles, and design alternative pathways, to intergenerational justice. Praxis projects serve as testbeds for theory, and provide tangible, local illustrations of how sustainable futures can be built.

  • Recent Publications

    “Beyond the ‘hubris of the zero point’: Methods for resisting epistemic oppression,” Philosophy and Social Criticism, OnlineFirst, September 2024 https://doi.org/10.1177/01914537241285590
    Abstract

    This paper examines the epistemic dimension of dominant group ideologies in order to disrupt oppressive epistemic norms; specifically, the aspiration to ‘neutral’ knowledge, and as a result, what is given the status of knowledge, and who is considered to be producers of said knowledge. It aims to offer evidence that we are under the influence of a longstanding, oppressive, and dominative epistemological system, which leaves us facing clear structural and ideological barriers to epistemic justice. Following this structural critique, it offers measures for ‘changing the structures of knowledge’, alongside alternative norms for cultivating epistemic justice; most centrally, an alternative conception of objectivity understood as a product of democratically inclusive intersubjective and dialogical processes. In summary, this paper aims to: (1) highlight the centrality of structural oppression to epistemic injustice; (2) identify specific structures of epistemic oppression today; and (3) offer strategies for resisting epistemic oppression in order to cultivate epistemic justice.

    “Decolonization as Existential Paradox: Lewis Gordon’s Political Commitment to Thinking Otherwise and Setting Afoot a New Humanity,” Sartre Studies International 27:2 (2021) https://doi.org/10.3167/ssi.2021.270212
    Abstract

    This paper examines the work of Lewis Gordon in order to decolonize “Euromodernity” and its intersecting structures (racism, patriarchy, capitalism, and liberalism). I argue that Euromodern colonization has resulted in the global imposition of a corrupted conception of the human being, as well as structures intended to prop up and sustain it, ultimately producing a dehumanizing world-system that works toward the privatization of freedom and power. Following Gordon, I suggest that we must begin “thinking otherwise” to remove the yoke that is asphyxiating our imaginative and normative resources, and to revitalize politics to challenge a form of power that aims to dominate reality at the expense of human (and non-human) life and flourishing. Inevitably, though, we must also act, despite having no guarantees of what the future will bring, revealing the existential paradox of decolonization.

    Contemporary “Structures” of Racism: A Sartrean Contribution to Resisting Racial Injustice,” Sartre Studies International 25:2 (2019) https://doi.org/10.3167/ssi.2019.250205
    Abstract

    This paper develops an account of racism as rooted in social structural processes. Using Sartre, I attempt to give a general analysis of what I refer to as the “structures” of our social world, namely the practico-inert, serial collectives, and social groups. I then apply this analysis to expose and elucidate “racist structures,” specifically those that are oftentimes assumed to be ‘race neutral’. By highlighting structures of racial oppression and domination, I aim to justify: 1) the imperative of creating conditions free from oppression and domination, over the adherence to ‘ideal’ principles which perpetuate racial injustice; 2) the shared responsibility we have collectively to resist and transform social structural processes that continue to produce racial injustice.

    “Responsibility for Violence: Scarcity and the Imperative of Democratic Equality,” Radical Philosophy Review 22:2 (2019) https://doi.org/10.5840/radphilrev20197996
    Abstract

    This paper critically examines violence, and our shared responsibility for it. Drawing on insights from Jean-Paul Sartre, I develop the correlation between scarcity and violence, emphasizing scarcity as agential lack that results from conditions of oppression and domination. In order to develop this correlation between scarcity and violence, I examine the racial dimension of violence in the U.S. Following this analysis, I claim that we all share responsibility for the social structural processes in which we participate that produce scarcity. On these grounds, I argue for the imperative of democratic equality, i.e., conditions for the self-development and self-determination of all.

    Resisting the myth of ‘post-racial’ America and sharing responsibility for injustice (March 2018) WHYY.org

  • Works in Progress

    “The Ideology of Racism: Unveiling 'Race Neutrality'”
    Abstract

    This paper offers an “ideology-critique” in order to expose norms – namely, impartiality, merit, natural rights, and autonomy – which function to perpetuate racial injustice. Borrowing concept tools from Raymond Geuss, I highlight the ideological properties of each of these norms in order to expose their feigned ‘race neutrality’. For example, I claim that the ideal of impartiality is ideological because it leads to conclusions that affirm ‘particular’ interests under the guise of ‘universal’ interests, making it an explicit method by which cultural imperialism is exercised. Additionally, I argue that the merit principle is ideological because it serves as a method for naturalizing and legitimizing inequality. Next, I assert that the notion of ‘natural rights’ is ideological because said rights are assumed to be ‘natural’, and in light of this assumption, we uncritically consent to them, making it difficult to challenge them even if they exacerbate injustice. Lastly, I argue our positive valuation of autonomy as non-interference fosters oppression and domination because this type of autonomy is impossible for all people coextensively.

    “Sharing Responsibility for Racial Injustice”
    Abstract

    Building on Iris Marion Young’s “Social Connection Model,” this paper argues for the importance of prioritizing what I refer to as a “shared model of responsibility” when dealing with harms that result from social structural processes. The goal of the “shared responsibility model” is primarily forward-looking, hoping to motivate action to undo structural injustices – specifically racial injustice. I argue that even though responsibility is shared, it isn’t shared equally, outlining differing responsibilities that we have as a result of our social relation to the injustice produced. I also insist that we have a responsibility ‘not to evade responsibility’, highlighting specific methods of evasion commonly employed in the case of racial injustice. I conclude by suggesting that we need to enable people to be more “personally responsible” by creating more just background conditions for self-development and self-determination, or what I refer to as conditions of democratic equality.

    “Teleological Suspension of Development: Imagining Pluriversal Futures through Traditions from the Global South”
    Abstract

    Sylvia Wynter makes a convincing argument about the fact that development functions teleologically – imposing a singular and universal path for the future of humanity, and dehumanizing all who don’t follow that path. Borrowing inspiration from Lewis R. Gordon, then, this paper begins by performing a “teleological suspension of development” in order to articulate key features that are commonly seen as necessary for development, but are inconsistent with sustainability and justice (e.g., unending growth and unfettered technological advancement). Drawing inspiration from traditions from the Global South, I will present three concepts to facilitate the decolonization of development: 1) relationality; 2) reciprocity; and 3) conviviality. I will conclude by considering how these three concepts will help us imagine pluriversal futures that might allow for – as the Zapatistas have put it – “a world in which many worlds fit.”

    “More than the Material Matters: Du Bois and Rousseau on the Psychic Motivations of White Supremacy”
    Abstract

    This paper uses Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s conception of amour-propre as a lens to analyze the psychic motivations of white supremacy. Building on Rousseau’s claim that our desire to be esteemed (i.e., a psychic motivation rooted in amour-propre) can feed our tendency to create and preserve inequality, and pairing it with W.E.B. Du Bois’s reading of whiteness as a “public and psychological wage,” I argue that white supremacy has nonmaterial motives that reveal an important dimension of its “staying power.” I then examine how this has been exacerbated by neoliberalism and a commitment to meritocracy that provides psychological justification for our ever-deepening inequality. I conclude by claiming that combatting white supremacy necessitates building a social world that alleviates, rather than exacerbates, the “psychology of inequality.”

    “Concrete Morality and Corrective Justice: The Primacy of Non-ideal Theory for Combatting Racial Injustice”
    Abstract

    This paper defends a notion of “concrete morality” that prioritizes political action in the fight against oppression and domination, over a notion of “abstract morality” which adheres to “ideally just” principles regardless of the injustice that results from doing so. For example, in abstraction, treating everyone the same regardless of their race might appear to be an intuitive method for respecting the dignity of all persons, but in the real world, mutual respect for persons is not so easily attained. It entails a willingness to listen and attend to the concrete particularities of other individuals, especially their appeals for justice. As such, I assert we need to do what is necessary to improve conditions of oppression and domination, even if it entails violating certain “regulative ideals” which we espouse. I conclude by offering particular methods of corrective justice as a means for ameliorating conditions of racial injustice in the United States, specifically addressing state sanctioned violence and educational inequality.

  • Past and Upcoming Presentations

    “Teleological Suspension of Development: Imagining Sustainable Pluriversal Futures through Human Scale Development,” University of Dayton, Department of Philosophy Colloquium, April 2025

    “Teleological Suspension of Development: Imagining Pluriversal Futures through Traditions from the Global South,” Caribbean Sociological Association “Decolonizing Development – Reimagining Development for a Sustainable and Just Global Community,” Kingston, Jamaica, September 2024

    “Senghor’s Decolonial Socialism,” Caribbean Philosophical Association “Shifting the Geography of Reason XXI,” Virtual Conference, June 2023

    Race and Media Representation Roundtable Panelist, Core Futures 2021: “Diverse Pasts, Inclusive Futures,” Temple University, March 2021

    Reclaimed Legacies Roundtable Panelist (W.E.B. Du Bois and Martin Luther King), Tracing Racism and Xenophobia in the Era of COVID-19: The Year in Historical Perspective, Temple University, October 2020

    “Thinking through Du Bois’s “Sociology Hesitant”: On the Human Sciences and the Social Construction of Race,” Core Futures 2020: "Race in Core Conference," Temple University, March 2020

    “Resisting Willful Ignorance in the Age of Social Media: The “Power” of Democratic Knowing,” Guest Speaker, Arcadia University, April 2018

    “Civil Discourse: Examining ‘Post-Racial’ America,” Panel Discussion MercyTalk and NewCORE’s MLK Legacy Conversations, Gwynedd Mercy University, March 2018

    “Behind the ‘Hubris of the Zero Point’: Methods for Resisting Epistemic Oppression,” Works in Progress Series, Temple University, November 2017

    Commentator, Nkiru Nzegwu’s “Conceptualizing Transformatory Power,” MAP-UPenn Non-western Philosophy Conference: “Global Feminisms,” March 2017

    “‘Shade-Tree Theology’: Jean-Marc Ela’s Grassroots Liberation Theology,” Caribbean Philosophical Association “Theorizing from Small Places Conference,” June 2016

    “Radical Responsibility: A Sartrean Contribution to an ‘Ethics of Liberation’,” North American Sartre Society Annual Meeting, November 2015

    “Sartre and Postcolonial Humanism,” Caribbean Philosophical Association “Diverse Lineages of Existentialism Conference,” June 2014

    “Understanding African Identity: Revealing Human Identity,” Boston College Graduate Scholarship Symposium, April 2010

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