WELCOME!
I am in the final months of my graduate studies in
Philosophy at the
University of Wisconsin-Madison. I work in Ethics and
Political Theory, although I have studied and have an interest
in various issues in Philosophy of Science, Philosophy of
Mind, and the rationalist tradition in Islamic Philosophical
thought. My PhD dissertation, which continues the work I've
done on political violence, is a study of suicide bombing and
ethics of self-sacrifice. You may view my CV
here.
SCHOLARLY INTERESTS AND
BACKGROUND
I am due to defend my dissertation in the Fall of 2007.
My dissertation work has been directed by
Claudia Card, Emma
Goldman Professor of Philosophy at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. I have already published several pieces on
political violence and I have a number of papers and reviews
forthcoming in 2008, including a chapter in the Oxford
University Press Handbook on Genocide. During my career as a
graduate student at UW-M, I also presented at APA on several
occasions. One of my papers on terrorism was accepted as a
Symposium Presentation at APA-Pacific in 2006. I have also
written research papers on such topics as biological theories
of mental content, psychological interpretation,the
metaphysics of self-deception, Kant on radical evil,
Maimonides' conception of God, and several essays on the
political thought of Hannah Arendt.

My dissertation begins by laying the conceptual
foundations for a philosophical theory of suicide bombing. I
argue that suicide bombing can be made sense of as a form of
cooperatively perpetrated political terrorism directed at
collective targets. On my view, this 'collective' form of
terrorism cannot be defined in the standard philosophical
sense, although it can be understood as a phenomenon that
conforms to either one of two means-end structures of action.
The first of these structures is a non-standard form of
coercion while the other counts as a non-coercive form of
intimidation that works by instilling in a target population a
social-psychological state of 'terror.' I introduce two
distinctions, one between the intermediate and ultimate
objectives of revolutionary terrorist groups, and the other
between the motivations of the immediate perpetrator and the
collectively defined ends that the immediate perpetrator's
actions contribute to. On the basis of these distinctions, I
argue that the means-end structure of 'collective' terrorism
is always related to the goal intimidating a target or
coercing it in the non-standard sense I identify. One
implication of my account is that collective terrorism is far
more widespread than has been suggested in the philosophical
literature to date. In particular, the distinction between
collective terrorism and modern warfare is far from clear.
There are strong reasons for thinking that many acts of modern
warfare would be more accurately described and categorized as
instances of collective terrorism. This conclusion is both
conceptually interesting and of great significance to the
formulation of more adequate transnational legal instruments
and international public policy.
I describe in detail
the effects that 'terror' is intended to have on a target
population and then contrast these effects with those
characteristic of what the political philosopher Hannah Arendt
referred to as 'total domination.' Central to this contrast is
the argument that insofar 'collective' terrorism aims at
recognizably political objectives, it would make little sense
for its perpetrators to intend on eliminating the human
capacity for spontaneous action or to obliterate the realm of
public or private political interaction, as totalitarian
regimes often do. 'Collective' terrorism can and does,
however, intentionally undermine the capacity for rational
deliberation and disfigure its victim's aptitude for moral
thought and compassion. Often - though not always -
'collective' terrorism deliberately kills innocent civilians
and it always makes instrumental use of ethically significant
relationships. Taken together, these factors are sufficient to
justify an extremely stringent moral presumption against its
use.
Although the intentional psychology of suicide
bombing has a great deal in common with that of non-suicidal
collective terrorism, it is also significantly more complex.
In the case of suicide bombings, the influences on the
immediate perpetrator are more varied and the perpetrator's
acts are culturally mediated and sanctioned in ways that acts
of non-suicidal collective terrorism are not. Suicide bombing,
I argue, also has a much richer complement of intermediate
goals. The relationship between these goals, the immediate
perpetrator's motivations, and the formally defined objectives
of a campaign of violence is significantly more elaborate in
cases of suicidal collective terrorism. I give an account of
these differences, and on that basis develop a theory of
suicidal terrorism. I suggest that if this theory is to
accommodate the diversity of the phenomena, it must also be
conceived of as a collection of models, each of which is a
subtle variation on the intentional structures of action
previously discussed. I argue that this theory has interesting
implications for the moral judgments we make about suicide
bombing. In particular, it implies that suicide bombing
involves wrong making features that are not shared by
non-suicidal forms of collective terrorism. The most
significant of these has to do with the way in which these
acts are often sanctioned by a community and otherwise
culturally mediated. However, I do not think it is possible to
arrive at a full moral account of suicide bombing without
discussing the harm it does to victims independently of the
role this harm plays in the means-end structures of the
perpetrator's intentional psychology. I describe these
'accidental' harms in detail and explore whether they have
something in common with the harms caused by other forms of
political and criminal violence.
Is there something
else that makes suicide bombing a more serious moral wrong
than non-suicidal forms of collective terrorism? Does it have
some feature that could be considered morally laudable? The
answer to these questions depends on the metaphysics and moral
status of suicide, and on whether suicide bombing is a form of
altruistic action. I argue that although it does count as a
form of suicide, this does not make suicide bombing any worse
than non-suicidal forms of collective terrorism. There are no
"duties to oneself" (Kant) or any other plausible defense of
the immorality of suicide. On the basis of empirical accounts
of the perpetrators motivations and social context, I argue
that suicide bombing is psychologically altruistic but that
this makes little difference to its overall comparative moral
status. The dissertation concludes by inquiring into the
causes of suicidal collective terrorism in specific conflict
zones and by suggesting appropriate political
remedies.

TEACHING
While I have been in residence as a Graduate Student at
UW-Madison, I was a teaching and research assistant
on six occasions. I assisted in the teaching of such
courses as History of Ancient Philosophy, Reason in
Communication, Contemporary Moral Issues, and Philosophy of
Religion. I have also taught my own applied ethics course
twice, and I have been an Associate Lecturer in full charge of
large undergraduate courses on three occasions.
PROFESSIONAL
ACTIVITIES
I am a founding member and the current programming chair of
the Society for Arab, Persian, and Islamic Philosophy (SAPIP),
an APA affiliated organization that exists to encourage
philosophical reflection on issues and concerns that emerge
from the history, life, thought, and writings of peoples of
Arab, Persian, and Islamic ancestry in the Americas and
throughout the world. SAPIP was established in mid-2006 and it
hosted two panels at last year's APA Eastern Division Meeting.
At APA in 2007, we will again host two panels, the titles of
which are "Contemporary Arab Cultural Critique: Debating
Islamicization as a Form of Re-Ethnicization of the Mind," and
"Philosophical Perspectives on Political Oppression in the
Developing World: Responsibility for Justice, Proposals for
Redress."
I am also a reviewer for the Journal of
Genocide Studies and a member of the APA and the American
Association of University Professors.
OTHER STUFF
Besides doing philosophy, I read and write about politics
and have been involved in various social movements. I've also
been into running for a long time. I race distances ranging
from 5K to Half-Marathon. I hope to run a Marathon in the near
future.