What does freedom mean to you?
I think that freedom is an ideal, it is the best possible. Freedom for me is the absence of authority, an independence from being constrained by another’s choice (Kant). For my purposes here, freedom is about the moral value of individual liberty, i.e., the freedom from control by necessity. Philosophically speaking (again, for me), freedom is being autonomous and free willed, that is being in control of one’s own passions, telling one’s own story, acting in accordance with her beliefs and values and having the last word on a relevant matter (David Enoch distinction between Autonomy as Non-Alienation and Autonomy as Sovereignty, 2022).  

How does freedom feature in your work?
The idea of freedom is a supreme principle of my work. My current research focuses on special obligations (i.e., obligations owed to some subset of persons, in contrast to natural duties) in the context of love and intimate relationships. So, the traditional autonomy-oriented conception of individual freedom has a different concern here. How should we think about the central values of love and personal autonomy? How are the value of autonomy and related values to be weighed against other values? I will say much more in my research about the nature of duty and autonomy and the tension between those concepts and the concepts of intimate relationships and love.

What project(s) are you working on during your fellowship at the Forum Basiliense?
My current project is about separation, duties and personal autonomy. How do post-separation moral duties affect one’s personal autonomy? To borrow Joseph Raz’s definition of autonomy, the value of autonomy is the value of being part author of one’s life (Raz 1986, 369). Autonomy may be restricted by coercion, a limited range of options, and the inability to determine how to act, or we can be deprived of autonomy by succumbing to addiction, compulsion, and so on. But how, if at all, do moral duties affect the scope of self-government? For instance, if a person’s moral duties towards a former lover (a spouse or partner) continue even after the end of the relationship, does this limit her options in ways that thereby constrains the scope of her autonomy? Or, do one’s moral commitments constitute one’s identity, such that submitting to them expresses, rather than constrains, one’s autonomy? I plan to explore these questions in relation to the concept of post-separation moral duties examined in the previous research question.