At the heart of my work is a conception of moral thinking which presupposes that the world to which moral concepts are responsible is a realm that, far from being somehow bequeathed to us prior to moral exertion, is brought into focus by moral thought and activity.

My preferred picture of what moral thought is like is one that I inherit partly from other philosophers; above all, Stanley Cavell, Cora Diamond, John McDowell and Iris Murdoch. But I have developed a distinctive vocabulary and style for discussing the outlook in ethics I favor, and I am interested in a very distinctive set of issues. I have, among other things, argued that we need moral categories to do empirical justice to all human beings and animals in ethics. In laying out these lines of argument, I have become involved not only in conversations about, but also in advocacy for, cognitively disabled human beings and animals.

As a student, I read Philosophy at the universities of Harvard and Pittsburgh, USA.