I'm a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University, a Trustee of the British Society of Aesthetics, a co-founder of the Welsh Aesthetics Forum, a co-founder and former organiser of the Scottish Aesthetics Forum, and a co-founder and co-director of the newly formed Aesthetics & Ethics Research Group.
I've published articles on beauty, including the notion of moral beauty, the ethical criticism of art, the concept of ugliness, and the situationist debate in moral psychology. I am currently mainly working on beauty, developing a hybrid theory that seeks to shed light on its links to central human and personal values. Related to this account, I will also examine and provide an account of taste in beauty.
In addition to my main research project, I'm also interested in a number of other topics. In the Philosophy of Film, I'm currently writing a paper about empathy with 'rough heroes'. In environmental aesthetics, I'm writing a paper about positive aesthetics and ugliness. And in
ethics and moral psychology, I'm exploring naturalistic accounts of ethical and aesthetic value, in the hopes of articulating a naturalistic, exemplarist, theory of value wherein beauty plays a central role.
Besides writing, I enjoy teaching philosophy. Specifically, I'm currently, I'm teaching teaching the following modules at Cardiff: 'Aesthetics' (BA, Y2), 'Philosophy through Fiction and Film' (BA, Y1), and 'Beauty and Ethics' (BA, Y3), and 'Beauty, Art, & Value' (MA).
Besides philosophy, I'm very interested in film. I hold an MA in Filmmaking from Goldsmiths, specialising in cinematography, and have been involved in the production of several short films. I also enjoy taking photographs (some of which you can see here), and have, in the past, made some attempts at video art and screenwriting.
Photo credit: Sofia Lazaridi (Linked In profile)
