me

Well hello there! I'm Amy, and I study philosophy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Since my first philosophy course, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, I have been enthusiastic about defending moral realism, the view that there are objective moral facts. One of the most controversial features of moral realism is that it seems to undermine morality's practical import, the sense in which morality has implications for how we ought to live. In my master's thesis and now in my dissertation, I have been arguing that this controversy is due largely to misunderstood issues in philosophy of language. I believe that contemporary semantics provides a useful framework for understanding ethical concepts and explaining how there can be objective ethical facts, facts that tell us what to do. You can read papers I've written here.

When I'm not doing philosophy, I enjoy singing silly songs, playing the cello, jogging, teaching pre-school or middle school, and visiting my three new neices (Meghan, Allison, and Maya) and two-year-old nephew (Boomer) in Ohio. You can view pictures of them here.

I also work with lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, straight and allied teenagers in Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill. You can visit their website here. The youth I work with have taught me more about being a good person, being myself and emancipatory social change than my schooling. I am so grateful to them for being out and for being awesome.