Transfer Day Keynote Speaker at Bridgewater State University
On April 10, 2019, I was invited to speak to transfer students at Bridgewater State University as well as prospective transfer students from two local community colleges: Massasoit Community College and Bristol Community College about the transfer process and different ways they could find success. For more information on the event follow the link, here.
Update: On January 15th 2020 I was again invited to speak to transfer students about some of the ways they could be successful on their upcoming transition from community college to Bridgewater State University and I gladly accepted.
Professional Updates
The Free Will Show (podcast interview): on Feb 9, 2023 I'll be interviewed by Taylor Cyr and Matthew Flummer about my views in the free will debate. I'll post a link to the podcast once it becomes available. The podcast can be found here.
In Depth Interview:
I was recently interviewed for the website 'What Is It Like To Be A Philosopher'. In the interview I talk a bit about my upbringing and my academic journey among other things. You can find the interview here. The interview was published on 10/12/2022
Academic Year 2022-2023 Teaching
I was hired in June 22' to teach a 4/4 course load on a full time basis at Bridgewater State University. I was also hired to teach a 2/3 course load at Rutgers University on a part-time basis. Additionally I'll be teaching at Umass Dartmouth and Northeastern University respectively where I've been for some time now.
***Update: I have accepted 2 more additional courses at BSU bringing my total to (5/5)
Academic Year 2021-2022 Teaching
I was excited that my full time visiting position (3/3) was renewed for a second (and final year) at Northeastern University. This year I'll be teaching all 6 sections of Moral and Social Issues in Health Care. My 3 courses per semester have been cut to 2 per semester at Bridgewater State University due to lower enrollment (likely covid related).
****Update: I've accepted a 3 course contract at Umass Dartmouth to teach two intro to ethics courses and one course in bioethics in Spring 22'.
Academic Year 2020-2021 Teaching
I was pleased to accept a full time teaching position at Northeastern University where I'll be teaching a 3/3 course load as well as additional summer courses. I'll be teaching 3 sections of Moral and Social Issues in Health Care and 3 sections of Technology and Human Values. I'll continue teaching Critical Thinking at Bridgewater State University as the Northeastern position is not permament though there is a chance of a one year renewal.
Academic Year 2019-2020 Teaching
I signed a contract to teach in the Fall and Spring at Bridgewater State University. In the fall I'll be teaching 3 sections of Foundations of Logical Reasoning, Bridgewater's critical thinking and intro logic course, and one class titled: 'Happiness and Meaning in Life'. I'll also be teaching one course at Northeastern University in the fall (Technology and Human Values) where I have been teaching consistently for the past year.
****Update: For the Spring semester (2020) I'll be teaching 6 courses in all; four courses at Bridgewater State (2 sections of Foundations of Logical Reasoning; Contemporary Moral Problems; Introduction to Philosophy) and two courses at Northeastern University (2 sections of Moral and Social Issues in Health Care)
Transfer Connection Day Keynote Speaker at Bridgewater State University
On April 10 I'll be speaking to transfer students at Bridgewater State University as well as prospective transfer students from two local community colleges: Massasoit Community College and Bristol Community College. For more information on the event follow the link, here.
Teaching at Northeastern University
On October 13 I signed a contract to teach two sections of Information Ethics (Technology and Human Values) at Northeastern University in Boston in the spring of 2019, classes start January 7th! I'm excited to start at Northeastern; I'll be teaching Tuesday and Friday afternoons. So if you're in the Boston area between January and May 2019 let's meet up on a late Friday afternoon/early evening after class and talk philosophy and grab a bite to eat.
Bridgewater State University Professor Profile
On September 3rd I was interviewed by Brian Benson of Bridgewater State University News. He asked me questions about my time as a student at Bridgewater State and how that experience has helped me through graduate school. It was a fun interview where Brian asked me questions about my hometown, the transition from student to teacher and how I came to the decision to further my education after my time as a student at BSU. It was published on September 13th. You can find the interview in it's entirety here.
Accepted 3/3 teaching instructorship at Bridgewater State University Starting Fall 2018.
It bring me great pleasure to announce that I'll be teaching 3 sections per semester of Introduction to Logical Reasoning at my alma mater, Bridgewater State University starting in September 2018. My philosophical journey has come full circle; I took my first philosophy class at BSU and now I'll be teaching there. I'm excited to start and am looking forward to engaging with students and faculty.
Successful Ph.D Defense! Dr. Justin Caouette (it has a ring to it!).
After much anxiety and preparation, on May 29, 2018 I successfully defended my dissertation! The thesis, which was supervised Walter Glannon, was titled "Assessing the Moral Evaluations of Pharmacological Enhancements" and will be uploaded to the vault in the coming weeks after some minor revisions. Thanks to all who have supported me both personally and philosophically through this academic journey!
Accepted Philosophy Instructor Position at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology (SAIT)
I am happy to announce that I have accepted a contracted Philosophy Instructor position at SAIT to teach 5 courses in the Fall of 2017 (3 sections of Ethics and 2 sections of Ethics and Technology). This position is housed in the school of Academic Services as SAIT does not have a philosophy department). I am looking forward to joining to the team at SAIT and engaging with their students and my new colleagues; I am thankful for the opportunity.
2016 J.B Hyne Research Innovation Award Recipient
On September 29th I humbly accepted the 2016 J.B Hyne Research Innovation Award. The Faculty of Graduate Studies created this award to recognize graduate students in any discipline who excel in research. It is named to honour Dr. James B. Hyne, the first Dean of Graduate Studies (1966-1989). Three of these awards were given to graduate students across all disciplines to acknowledge excellence in research. I'd like to thank my department for nominating me for the award as well as those who have helped assist me in my research over the past 5 years. More information on the award can be found here. I'm especially excited to receive this award as it marks the first time someone from the Philosophy Department has been bestowed this honor.
The 6th Annual UCalgary Graduate Philosophy Conference (2017)
I am happy to announce that I will be coordinating the 6th Annual Graduate Conference at the University of Calgary. We have already secured three plenary speakers (Katrina Sifferd, Gregg D. Caruso, and Samir Chopra) The conference will be held on May 3rd and 4th of 2017. The conference topic will be Ethics in the Age of Science. The aim of the conference will be to explore the implications of cognitive and neuroscientific findings for our ethical theories and social practices. The following questions (among others) will be explored. Do ethical evaluations change in light of these findings? Should they? Does knowledge of our cognitive limitations change what we can be obligated to do? Should it? Should findings by neuroscientists and cognitive scientists affect what we ought to hold people responsible for with regards to their decisions and behavior? Should the neuroscience of emotions change how we should treat others? Should our growing knowledge of animal cognition change their moral status? Does the failure to replicate certain social psychological experiments change how we feel social psychological research should inform our ethical decisions? I would like to thank the University of Calgary's Department of Philosophy for graciously helping to fund this conference.
UPDATE (12/20/2017) The conference went extremely well and I was able to converse at length with Katrina, Gregg, and especially Samir on a number of philosophical topics I've been wrestling with over the past few months. Thanks to all who attended!
Upcoming or Recent Presentations
Presenting at the Department Colloquium Series at the U.S Naval College in Newport, RI on Feb 22, 2023.
In this talk I will discuss both a soldier's and a general's moral obligation to enhance.
Presentation at the 2018 meeting of the (APA) Pacific Division in San Diego, California, March 28.
I've been invited to present as part of an invited symposium on Moral Luck at the 2018 American Philosophical Association (APA) Pacific Division Meeting in San Diego, California on March 28, 2018 from 9am-12pm. Others presenting during that symposium are Gregg Caruso, Philip Swenson, and Grace Campbell. My paper is tentatively titled "Human Agency, Moral Obligation, and Moral Responsibility: What's luck got to do with it?"
UPDATE (4/1/2018) The presentation went well and I received great feedback from those in attendance and from the other panelists.
Presentation for the 69th Annual Northwest Philosophy Conference in Pullman, Washington, October 7, 2017.
On Saturday, October 7th, 2017 I presented a paper titled "Against Free Will Skepticism: An Argument From Ethics". I've been working through this argument for some time now so it was nice to present it formally. In this paper I argue that the free will skeptic is not justified in holding her skepticism. To show why this is so I appeal to pragmatic encroachment which couches the nature of epistemic justification on the stakes within the context. By showing how free will skepticism affects our moral practices, concepts, and judgments I aimed to raise the stakes in the free will debate. By raising the stakes I make it the case the free will skeptic is never justified in holding onto their skepticism as long as there are plausible alternative theories. I argue that since libertarianism and compatibilism are plausible (by the skeptics own lights), the free will skeptic is not justified in believing in free will skepticism.
Comments at the 2017 meeting of the (APA) Pacific Division in Seattle, Washington.
Unable to make the conference due to funding issues my colleague Stephanie Reyes delivered my comments for me. The colloquium paper was titled "A New Argument Against 'Ought-Implies-Can'" by P.Roger Turner and was presented at the 2017 American Philosophical Association (APA) Pacific Division Meeting in Seattle, Washington.
Comments at the 2017 meeting of the (APA) Eastern Division in Baltimore, Maryland.
I delivered a commentary on Janell Dewitt's paper "Feeling and Inclination: Rationalizing the Animal Within" at the 2017 American Philosophical Association (APA) Eastern Division Meeting in Baltmore, Maryland on January 6th.
Presentation for the Apeiron Society for the Advancement of Philosophy, November 22, 2016
I presented a paper from my dissertation titled "Enhancement and Cheating" I received great comments and the crowd was enthused and lively during the Q & A which made discussing my work lots of fun!
Comments at the 2016 meeting of the (CPA) Canadian Philosophical Association in Calgary
On Sunday (May 29th at 10:15am, in room SH 288) I delivered comments on on Devlin Russell’s “Action Under Development” at the 2016 Meeting of the Canadian Philosophical Association (CPA) in Calgary, Alberta.
Collaborative Projects
The Moral Psychology of Compassion
I was approached by Prof. Mark Alfano to co-edit a volume on one of the moral emotions, compassion, with Prof. Carolyn Price from the Open University. The volume will be part of a series that includes emotions such as anger, contempt, disgust, and forgiveness, among others. As the project progresses I will post updates to this page. I am excited to work with the 11 authors that have already supplied me with abstracts for the volume. The series homepage can be found here.
UPDATE (1/28/2017): Carolyn and I have signed our contract and are working with our authors to finish up the volume. Stay tuned!
UPDATE (10/26/2017): All chapters have been edited and submitted to the publisher.
UPDATE (1/8/2018): Final corrections have been made and sent to the publisher in late 2017. Book is expected out in March 2018.
UPDATE (3/30/2018): The book has been published and is available for purchase!
The Logic of Free Will and Moral Responsibility
In this paper, Aaron Thomas-Bolduc and I (grad school office mate for over 4 years) develop the idea that the free will debate, or at least one central debate regarding the compatibility of free will and determinism, might be settled by getting clear on the correct logic we ought to employee when assessing the arguments put forward by both compatibilists and incompatibilists. This aspect of the free will debate (the compatibility of free will concepts with both determinism and indeterminism) seems to be at a stalemate. Some have suggested we are at an impasse, while others have made the stronger claim that the free will debate cannot be solved at all. In this paper we want to suggest that there might be a way forward. First, we diagnose why the debate seems to be at an impasse. We argue that the use of classical logic within the debate about an agent’s future action is to blame; classical logic is question-begging against the open-future thesis, a thesis we suggest should be endorsed by incompatibilists. To remedy this issue we suggest using non-classical logics that both compatibilists and incompatibilists can endorse. We model how this can be done and justify the need for the use of non-classical logics in the free will debate.
