I am Assistant Professor of Philosophy and Chair of the Humanities Department at Corning Community College, SUNY. I received my PhD in Philosophy from the City University of New York (CUNY), Graduate Center. Before arriving at Corning, I previously held positions at Brooklyn College and John Jay College of Criminal Justice. I am the author of Free Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will (2012) and the editor of Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility (2013)—which includes original contributions by Derk Pereboom, Galen Strawson, Ted Honderich, Bruce Waller, Neil Levy, Saul Smilansky, Thomas Nadelhoffer, Benjamin Vilhauer, Susan Blackmore, Manuel Vargas, Shaun Nichols, John-Dylan Haynes and Michael Pauen, Thomas W. Clark, Mark Hallett, Susan Pockett, and Maureen Sie. I am also the recipient of the 2012 Regional Board of Trustees Excellence in Teaching Award.

Research  Interests 

My research interests include philosophy of mind, cognitive science, and metaphysics, with a particular interest in consciousness and free will. My most recent work focuses on the problem of free will and the phenomenology of freedom. In particular, I argue that our subjective feeling of freedom, as reflected in the first-person phenomenology of agentive experience, is an illusion created by certain aspects of our consciousness. My broader work engages issues at the intersection of the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences. I am especially interested in theoretical accounts of consciousness and what recent developments in the behavioral, cognitive, and neurosciences can tell us about human agency and free will. I am also a defender of the higher-order thought theory of consciousness. 

My other interests include ethics, social and political philosophy, moral responsibility, and the clash between religious and scientific worldviews. A common theme that runs throughout all of my work is a commitment to naturalism—including naturalistic accounts of mind, metaphysics, and ethics.