I received my doctorate from Stanford University, California, in 2004. My dissertation was entitled "The Significance of Moral Disagreement," and was supervised by Debra Satz. My doctoral dissertation was in essence the groundwork for my current research. I argued against intrinsic appeals to moral disagreement in politics, where an intrinsic appeal assumes that the morally controversial nature of a political position can be in itself a principled reason against it. At Stanford, I spent a year at the Stanford Humanities Center in 2000-01. After I completed my doctorate, I spent a year as a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at UNC Chapel Hill. In 2005, I joined the Virginia Tech Philosophy Department as an Assistant Professor.

I received my bachelors, honours, and masters degrees from Rhodes University, South Africa, in 1993, 1994, and 1996. My undergraduate majors were philosophy and history. My masters thesis was on the "equality of what?" debate. I entered Rhodes in February 1990, just as the African National Congress was unbanned and Nelson Mandela released from prison. For the next few years, I was active in the anti-apartheid student movement. Much of my current outlook on politics has been shaped by the transitional period in South Africa. After leaving Rhodes, I taught for a semester at the University of Natal, Durban, and then started some doctoral work at the University of Cape Town, before heading to California in 1997.

"Religious Democracy and the Liberal Principle of Legitimacy," Philosophy & Public Affairs, 37 (2), 2009: 136-70

I argue against Rawls's claim that the liberal principle of legitimacy would be selected in the original position in addition to a democratic principle. Since a religious democracy could satisfy the democratic principle, the parties in the original position would not exclude it as illegitimate.

"Principled Compromise and the Abortion Controversy," Philosophy & Public Affairs, 33 (4), 2005: 317-48.

I argue that the only reasons for political leaders to forge moral compromises with opponents are pragmatic, even in the context of reasonable moral disagreements such as the abortion controversy.

"Review of Jiwei Ci, The Two Faces of Justice," in Philosophical Review, 117 (3), 2008: 448-51.

"Review of David Braybrooke, Utilitarianism; Restorations, Repairs, Renovations," in Philosophical Review, 116 (1), 2007: 121-24.

I teach graduate seminars in three areas: distributive justice, liberal theory, and democratic theory. The seminars in distributive justice are based on John Rawls's justice as fairness and the variety of egalitarian and non-egalitarian responses to that theory. Seminars in liberal theory focus on various problems in religious and moral diversity and disagreement in a liberal society, such as religious toleration and conscientious objection. Seminars in democratic theory take up topics such as the idea of the popular will, deliberative, epistemic, and agonistic approaches to democracy, and the tension between majoritarianism and constitutionalism. These seminars are open to students in the M.A. program in Philosophy, the ASPECT Ph.D. program, and any other graduate students in related disciplines.

I teach four undegraduate courses in philosophy, three in any given year. My version of Philosophy 2304: Global Ethics usually concerns issues connected with mass violence and human rights, particularly just war theory and genocide. Philosophy 3016: Political Theory is a survey of modern political theory from Hobbes to Marx, sometimes with a few thinkers from the twentieth century included. The class usually emphasises the ascent of liberty as a basic value of legitimate government. Philosophy 4304: Social and Political Philosophy is on some or other topic in political philosophy. In the past, I've taught it as an introduction to contemporary theories of distributive justice and also on problems of ethical pluralism in liberal democracy. Philosophy 4334: Jurisprudence is a class on the philosophy of law. We usually read H.L.A. Hart's Concept of Law as well as literature on rights theory, the duty to obey the law, and theories of constitutional interpretation.

My current research concerns conflicts of moral conviction in liberal democratic politics. This area of research includes issues such as the ethics of moral compromise, political legitimacy, liberal neutrality, public justification, and norms of public deliberation. Some present paper projects include the following:

"Liberal Neutrality and the Public Institution of Marriage"

Liberal abolitionists believe that the institution of civil marriage violates the requirement of state neutrality between competing conceptions of the good life. I argue that since civil marriage need not violate any of the five reasons for liberal neutrality, the liberal abolitionist argument fails.

"Compromise and Reconciliation in Democratic Transitions"

The paper concerns the question why compromise agreements made during transitional negotiations should be respected by post-transitional governments. I argue that democratic governments have a principled reason to respect these agreements insofar as the transitional processes were governed by a norm of reconciliation.

"Public Reason and the Duty of Civility"

I distinguish between theories of public justification and normative theories of public deliberation. I argue that Rawls's idea of public reason understood as a theory of public justification does not imply his duty of civility understood as a norm of public deliberation.