Since 2024, I have been teaching in the Department of History and Politics at George Fox University in Newberg, OR, where I am the Herbert Hoover Endowed Chair of Faith and Public Life. Prior to arriving here, I was an associate professor at Westmont College and Louisiana State University. I received my Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Virginia.  I also have an MA from Oxford, and a bachelors degree from Yale.

I’m a moral and political philosopher by trade, researching and writing on questions of political obligation, state legitimacy, the principle of fairness, voluntarism, liberalism, political ideologies, inequality, free markets, and public policy. I’m particularly interested in trauma, the role that it plays in psychological, emotional, and cognitive development, and its implications for a wide range of social problems.

I’m also the Director of Fox’s Pre-Law Certificate, and advise students interested in Nationally Competitive Post-Graduate Fellowships.

When I am not pondering eternal philosophical questions, I try to stay fit by running or cycling, and enjoy cooking and food. In another life, I wish I could have been Django Reinhardt.  My wife, Felicia, is a sociologist who studies the social effects of mass media technologies.  (She is very glad that she is NOT married to Django Reinhardt.) She is the author of Restless Devices, which is the very best theologically informed work of social theory on digital devices and technologies that you will find.