I have three main research interests. First, in metaethics and moral psychology, my work is organized around questions about the nature of agency and practical reasoning. Although my main focus is practical philosophy, this research also deals with issues in epistemology and the philosophy of mind. Second, I work on the history of 19^th and 20^th century European philosophy, especially Kierkegaard and Heidegger. Finally, I have a serious interest in psychoanalysis, which informs my approach to questions in ethics and the philosophy of agency.

My recent and ongoing projects focus on anxiety, as a topic in the history of philosophy as well as an intervention in contemporary debates about agency and normativity. I look to a Kierkegaard, Heidegger and Freud to recover a concept of anxiety as a structural characterization of our agency, not just an affective condition. I argue that our agency is essentially anxious, in the same way that it might be described as essentially rational or self-conscious. This shows, in addition, that our efforts to answer the question how to live involve not only deliberative practical reasoning, but also creative and interpretative forms of practical thinking.