The Basis of Moral Equality
My current research examines the question of the basis of moral equality, namely, the question of what - if anything - grounds the equal moral status of a specific range of beings (e.g., human beings and nonhuman animals), such that it is appropriate to consider and treat them as equals. In a series of articles, I have addressed different aspects of this issue, such as: What does it mean to be moral equals? What is the most promising approach to the question of the basis of moral equality? What kind of account of moral status should liberal theories of justice rest upon? Are adults and children one another’s moral equals? Furthermore, I have developed an account of the basis of persons’ moral equality, and put forward a novel defence of children’s equal moral status. Most recently, I have also been working on the question of intergenerational moral equality, that is, the question of whether present persons and future persons have equal moral status.

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Vulnerability to Social Exclusion
Building on my research on the meaning and the justification of equality, my subsequent research agenda will turn to the question of what society owes to its individual members if they are to be considered and treated as equals. In particular, I will address a type of asymmetrical and alienating social condition, which has become even more salient following the recent outbreak of COVID-19, namely: vulnerability to social exclusion. Indeed, The COVID-19 pandemic has vividly exposed our shared vulnerability to isolation, serving as a reminder that marginalization and exclusion constitute significant obstacles to the achievement of a society in which everyone can fully participate and stand in relations of equality with each other. This project will illustrate how these issues are profoundly related to a broader range of social and health problems, such as addiction and mental health, and thus will develop an original and comprehensive liberal egalitarian theory of vulnerability to social exclusion. This theory will define the rights that marginalized individuals have to be fully included as equals in society, and work out the social arrangements that the state ought to put in place in order to ameliorate their social condition.