Research
I'm currently working on a dissertation that attempts to clarify several aspects of the ethics of care. I'm attracted to the ethics of care because it seems to pick out a region of the moral landscape that is not well characterized by other ethical theories. But I'm unsatisfied with the level of theoretical clarity in the literature, especially with respect to care and emotion, partiality and impartiality, and the normative justifications for caring.
In my dissertation I will try to represent care not as a perspective on the whole of ethics, but as a particular focus of moral concern that must be balanced against other values, like justice and utility. Care, of course, differs from these values in that it is a moral response to particular individuals with whom we are in relationship, not "people as rational beings" or "people as containers for happiness" but people as friends, lovers, and family members to whom we have commitments. What's needed is a theoretical accomodation between impartiality, which I defend as being essential to morality, with the partiality that is essential to caring relationships.
Publications
Philosophy
Flier, L. (2006). "A Priori and A Posteriori Metaphysical Necessity," Graduate Student Conference on the Philosophy of E.J. Lowe, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, April 7.
Flier, L. (2005). “Modular Affective Judgements: A Defense of the Judgment Theory of Emotion,” Society for Student Philosophers Annual Conference, Grand Rapids, MI, Oct. 1-2.
Flier, L. (2004). “Corrupting the Youth of Buffalo: The Role of Philosophy in a Liberal Education,” Graduate Student Conference in Philosophy, University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, Mar 6.
Religion and Psychology
Flier, L. (1995). “Demystifying mysticism: Finding a developmental relationship between different ways of knowing.” J. Transpers. Psych. 27: 131-152.
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