My research focuses on the relationship between faith and politics in the history of political thought. In my dissertation, I examined Augustine of Hippo’s account of the fall of the human race. Why? The origin and subsequent corruption of humanity is a central theme of political life, but it is also a fundamental concern of religious faith. This theme – of human goodness and corruption in history – brings together faith and politics as ideal interlocutors on the perennial questions of social life: founding and sustaining political regimes, the burdens and joys of work, the dangers and opportunities of ambition, the role of private property and self-interest, and the status and protection of human dignity.

My work explores a related question from the perspective of modern philosophy: can religion be useful to democracy and self-government? In what ways might this thesis be true (or not) and what insight can we glean (from this investigation) about the nature and trajectory of modern liberal democracy? I have given special attention in this regard to the thought of the baron de Montesquieu and in Alexis de Tocqueville, two modern philosophers of the first rank.

I am also currently working on a book manuscript that raises and reflects on a fundamental question of modern political life. What is a commercial republic and why should we care about it? At the heart of the commercial republic is a quarrel between the republican virtues and the commercial way of life. It is the specifically republican virtues which (we fear) may be lost amid the seductions of commerce. This quarrel is most aptly illustrated by the legendary Lycurgus who reformed Sparta by banning the use of money and with it the vice of luxury. The inheritance of republicanism always posed a radical critique of the commercial way of life so understood. Insofar as modern varieties of republicanism had accepted the prerogatives of commerce, they are unable to comprehend themselves. They are incoherent, groundless, and without root: a kind of reactionary sentiment or longing for a human possibility that has already been foreclosed. Thus, to understand whether republicanism has, or ever could have, a place in the modern world – a world dominated by commerce and its adversaries, one must give renewed attention to the real or supposed compatibility of these two ways of life – ways of life, I hasten to add, that real humans have really lived.

In my spare time, I enjoy spending time in the great outdoors (skiing, biking, camping, swimming, walking) with my wonderful wife and three children. I enjoy collegiate sports, Wodehouse, and Tolkien.