Amelia Hicks
These days, most of my research is related to neurodivergence, and I disseminate that research via podcast. My more traditional academic research has focused on a variety of topics in moral philosophy and metaethics.
NeuroDiving
NeuroDiving is a philosophy podcast about neurodivergence, which I co-produce with the philosopher Joanna Lawson. We've received support from the Marc Sanders Foundation and the Templeton Foundation.
Moral Philosophy
I have longstanding research interests in moral philosophy and metaethics. I'm especially interested in moral uncertainty, non-ideal moral theory, and moral particularism. In my published work, I've argued that we ought to attend to our moral uncertainty when we engage in practical deliberation, and that a non-ideal moral theory offers us valuable tools for dealing with moral uncertainty. These conclusions are compatible with a minimal form of moral particularism, which I've also defended in print.
More Details
I've written several papers about how a non-ideal ethical theory can resolve a variety of problems related to moral uncertainty. These papers include “Moral Hedging and Responding to Reasons,” “Dispensing with the Subjective Moral 'Ought',” “Non-Ideal prescriptions for the Morally Uncertain,” and “Ignorance and Duty: The Objective/Subjective Distinction in Ethics.”
In another paper, “Moral Uncertainty and Value Comparison,” I argue that one has a rational obligation to take one's moral uncertainty into account in the course of deliberation (at least in some cases). I also defend this conclusion from the “problem of value comparison”; I argue that the problem of value comparison does not entail that there are no rational norms governing choice under moral uncertainty.
I co-authored (and recently revised) an entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy about the role of a priori justification in moral epistemology.
My doctoral dissertation was on moral particularism, the view (roughly speaking) that moral generalizations shouldn’t play a role in moral theory. I published a paper titled “Particularism Doesn't Flatten,” which was based on a chapter of my dissertation.
Publications
- “Ignorance and Duty: The Objective/Subjective Distinction in Ethics” The Oxford Handbook of Normative Ethics (forthcoming).
- “Non-Ideal Prescriptions for the Morally Uncertain,” Philosophical Studies (2021).
- “Dispensing with the Subjective Moral 'Ought',” Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics, Volume 11 (2021).
- “Moral Hedging and Responding to Reasons,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly (2019).
- “Moral Uncertainty and Value Comparison,” in Oxford Studies in Metaethics, Volume 13 (2018).
- “A Priorism in Moral Epistemology” (with Michael DePaul) in Th Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2016, updated 2021).
- “Particularism Doesn't Flatten,” in the Journal of Moral Philosophy (2016).