Kelin A. Emmett

 

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow working on the New Narratives in the History of Philosophy project in the Department of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University. I am working with Dr. Lisa Shapiro and the Digital Humanities Lab at the Simon Fraser University library on initiating a digital archive of works by early modern women philosophers. My postdoctoral research looks at early modern women's moral and political thought, with a particular focus on early modern women's engagement with varieties of social contract theory.

I received my PhD from the University of Toronto in the Department of Philosophy in 2016. My dissertation research focused on the nature and role of hypothetical (both instrumental and pragmatic) imperatives in Kant's practical philosophy, specifically how they are distinct from categorical imperatives. I argued for a conception of hypothetical imperatives, and thus of instrumental reasoning, that preserves the normative difference between hypothetical and categorical imperatives, and so also between heteronomy and autonomy.

My primary work is in moral and political philosophy, especially in the Kantian vein. I am also interested in the history of philosophy, feminism, philosophy of law, and "applied ethics." My research and teaching interests are motivated, and directed, largely by issues of social justice.