Background

I received my Ph.D. at Emory University in 1995. After spending a year here at UofSC as a visitor, and then a year teaching philosophy in Ejisu, Ghana, I returned permanently to UofSC in 1997. I have twice had year-long fellowships at the James Madison Program at Princeton University; I’ve also had visiting fellowships at the Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University, and, most recently, the DeNicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame.

Research Interests

I work broadly in ethics, in an area of natural law philosophy popularly called the "new" natural law theory.  My work spans the foundations of ethics, action theory, and various areas of practical ethics including medical ethics, the ethics of lying and truth-telling, and beginning and ending of life ethics. My most recent book, Killing and Christian Ethics was published in May 2026 from Cambridge University Press.

Recent Publications

Books

• Killing and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2026).
• The Way of Medicine: Ethics and the Healing Profession co-authored with Farr Curlin of Duke University (University of Notre Dame Press, 2021).
• Natural Law Ethics in Theory and Practice: A Joseph Boyle Reader co-edited with John Liptay of St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan (Catholic University of America Press, 2020).
• Lying and Christian Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2014).

Articles - Some recent and forthcoming work includes:

• “The New Natural Law Theory,” The Catholic Encyclopedia of Theology forthcoming.
•  “Double Effect and Universalizability,” Nova et Vetera, 24, 2026.
• “Hope and Hard Cases in Perinatal Medicine,” Christian Bioethics, forthcoming.
• “Law and Lawfulness: Genealogy, Jurisprudence, and the Thought of Bernard Williams,” in Bernard Williams on Law and Jurisprudence: From Agency and Responsibility to Methodology, Veronica Rodriguez-Blanco, Daniel Peixoto Murata and Julieta A Rábanos eds. (London: Hart Publishing, 2026), 181-196.
• “The Bioethics of Disability and Some Neglected Goods,” in Emerging Issues in Catholic Bioethics Jason Eberl ed. (Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2026), 11-29.

Other work available at Academia.edu.

Regularly Taught Courses 

I teach a variety of undergraduate classes as needed, including our Junior and Senior Seminars for Majors. Recent topics for those seminars have been the ethics of lying and truth-telling, and the nature of law.  Recent graduate seminars have focused on the work of Alasdair MacIntyre and Bernard Williams (2024) and natural law jurisprudence (2022)..

Projects

I have published a number of more popular essays, including over 100 for the online journal Public Discourse which are available here.

Other

I am the Executive Director of the South Carolina Center for American Civic Leadership and Public Discourse.