Department of Religious Studies

I study ethics, political theory, and philosophy of religion, with serious attention to both Chinese and Western theories and practices. I thus care about methods and tools of interpretation and comparison, and the relations of thought, culture, and history in diverse settings. Substantively, I am most interested in the relevance of ancient conceptions of human excellence, relationships, and character formation to life in contemporary heterogeneous, democratic societies.

My first book (Overcoming Our Evil, Georgetown University Press, 2006) examines and compares the accounts of ethico-religious practices of personal formation advocated by the early Confucian Xunzi and the early Christian Augustine of Hippo. It addresses contemporary debates in religious ethics about moral agency, sin and evil, and the purposeful cultivation of virtuous emotions and desires. In 2012 I co-edited a volume with Elizabeth Bucar that presents a variety of current approaches to the comparative study of religious ethics, and argues for a capacious conception of the field. My recently published second book, Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority, examines early Confucian social thought in relation to contemporary ethics and political theory. In it I argue against common contemporary suspicions that both authority and dependence are intrinsically threatening to human autonomy. On the contrary, our capacity for autonomy needs to be cultivated over time through deliberate practices of training, in which we depend on the guidance of virtuous and skilled teachers. Confucian thought provides a subtle and powerful analysis of one version of this training process, and of the social supports such an education in autonomy requires—as well as the social value of having virtuous and skilled leaders. Early Confucians contend that human life is marked by numerous interacting forms of dependence, which are not only ineradicable, but in many ways good. On a Confucian view, it is natural, healthy, and good for people to be deeply dependent on others in a variety of ways across the full human lifespan. They teach us that individual autonomy only develops within a social matrix, structured by relationships of mutual dependence that can either help or hinder it, including a variety of authority relations.

My current primary research project aims to develop a general theory of religious ethics, incorporating early Chinese insights into the idea of a dao or path that people are taught to follow, and merging these with contemporary theories of social action, the uses and abuses of power, and human subjectivity and agency.

I founded and for five years served as chair of the Comparative Religious Ethics Group within the American Academy of Religion. I have also served as co-chair of the Confucian Traditions Unit of the AAR, and am currently a trustee of the Journal of Religious Ethics.

“The Architecture of Global Justice: Comparing East Asian and Western Images of Communal Order.” In The Bloomsbury Handbook of Global Justice and East Asian Philosophy, ed. Janusz Salamon and Hsin-Wen Lee (London: Bloomsbury, 2024): 219-247.

“Religious Ethics and its Publics.” Journal of Religious Ethics 51.3 (September 2023): 446–457.

“Conceptual Approaches in Comparative Religious Ethics.” In Blackwell Encyclopedia of Religious Ethics, ed. William Schweiker, Maria Antonaccio, David Clairmont, and Elizabeth Bucar (Oxford: Wiley, 2022): vol.1, 389-396.

Comment on Peng Yin, “Virtue and Hierarchy in Early Confucian Ethics,” Journal of Religious Ethics 49.4 (Winter 2021). Journal of Religious Ethics 50.3 (September 2022): 568–569.

“Relations and Practices of Virtue: Replies to Commentators.” Philosophy East and West 71.2 (April 2021): 525-536.

“Striving for the Impossible: Early Confucians on Perfect Virtue in an Imperfect World.” In Michael Slote Encountering Chinese Philosophy: A Cross-Cultural Approach to Ethics and Moral Philosophy, ed. Yong Huang (London: Bloomsbury, 2020): 179-198.

“Roles and Virtues: Early Confucians on Social Order and the Different Aspects of Ethics.” In Perspectives in Role Ethics: Virtues, Reasons, and Obligation, ed. Christine Swanton and Tim Dare (Routledge, 2020): 95-122.

“The Innocuous Legacy of Christian Ethics in Comparative Religious Ethics.” Journal of Religious Ethics 47.4 (December 2019): 778-780.

“Self-Cultivation.” In Dao Companion to the Philosophy of Xunzi, ed. Eric Hutton (Dordrecht: Springer, 2016): 35-65.

“In Defense of Ritual Propriety.” European Journal of Philosophy of Religion 8.1 (Spring 2016): 117-141.

"Confucianism, Democracy, and the Virtue of Deference." Dao: a Journal of Comparative Philosophy 12.4 (December 2013): 441-459.

“Cultivating Autonomy with the Early Confucians.” Presented at the Confucius-Aristotle Symposium on Ancient Wisdom for Modern Challenges, Qufu and Beijing, China. July 2024

“Forgetting the Self as Trauma and Healing: Zhuangzian Reflections on Dementia and Dementia Care.” Presented at the East-West Philosophers’ Conference, University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. May 2024

 “Xunzi and Augustine on Self-Cultivation” and “Virtue as Skillful Mastery in Early Confucianism.” Presented at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. May 2024

“Moral Theory and Early Confucianism: Toward a Unified Account.” Presented at the Center for Chinese Studies, University of Michigan. October 2022

• REL-B 374 Introduction to Chinese Thought
• REL-C 103 Conceptions of the Self, East and West
• REL-D 430/R571 Religion, Virtue, and the Good Life
• REL-R 170 Religion, Ethics, and Public Life
• REL-R 389 Self-Cultivation and Spiritual Exercises
• REL-R 661/R770 Religion, Power, and Authority
• REL-R 662/R762 Comparative Religious Ethics
• REL-R 674/R780 Practices of the Self

• Indiana University Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics, and Society, Seminar grant (“Global and Comparative Approaches to Religion, Ethics, and Political Theory”), co-organized with Hussein Banai, 2018
• Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation Scholar Grant (“Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority”), 2015-16
• College Arts and Humanities grant (“Mastery, Dependence, and the Ethics of Authority”), Indiana University, 2013-14
• Trustees Teaching Award, Indiana University, Dept. of Religious Studies, 2007, 2013
• New Frontiers/New Perspectives grant (“Shaping the Third Wave of Comparative Religious Ethics: A Workshop Proposal”), Indiana University 2010
• Poynter Center Faculty Fellowship, Indiana University 2005
• Georgetown University Summer Research Grant, 2003
• Joukowsky Foundation award for the best dissertation in the humanities at Brown, 2001
• Spencer Dissertation Fellowship, Spencer Foundation, 2000-2001
• Jacob K. Javits Fellowship, U. S. Department of Education, 1995-1999
• Dean's Fellowship, Brown University, 1994-1995
• Phi Beta Kappa, Stanford University, 1990