Research

Areas of Specialization: Ethics, Political Philosophy, Philosophy of Law

Areas of Competence: Social Philosophy, Moral Psychology

My research examines the boundaries of justice and the relational dynamics that underlie moral motivation. I am particularly interested in how theories of distributive justice should respond to beings and groups at the margins of traditional frameworks—non-human animals, future and present younger generations, and developing nation-states—and in how intimate relationships shape our moral lives.

I am also developing work on demandingness and interspecies compliance asymmetries, value-based frameworks for legal interpretation, the nature of categorical mental difference, and the moral demands of partiality in end-of-life contexts.

Master's Thesis

Animals, Equal Relations, and the Claims of Distribution (Master's Thesis)

Develops a relationship-type approach to moral status, arguing that the reasoning that places humans in "equal relations" extends to animals, who are therefore entitled not only to protection from harm but also to legitimate distributive shares of societal resources.

Works in Progress

Drafts available upon request (sjang4@nd.edu).

Principled Discount Rates for Climate Change

Introduces the Burden Transmission Model, which derives climate discount rates (r = −ln α, where α represents each generation's capacity to prevent climate burdens from cascading forward) by tracking how burdens cascade onto presently existing younger generations, thereby avoiding the non-identity problem while offering actionable normative guidance.

Second-Order Control: Collective Control at the Level of the Investment System

Analyzes Chiara Cordelli's account of alienation in investment, distinguishing first-order control (lack of direct control) from second-order control (inability to override or exit investment structures). Argues that the distinctive wrong lies not in citizens' estrangement from investment decisions per se, but in the second-order structural barriers that prevent meaningful alternatives.

Irreducibly Relational Reasons

Contra Nagel, this paper argues that friendship-based reasons are irreducibly relational: what motivates an agent can be the indexical content because he is my friend—content no other agent can share or even imaginably occupy. A two-level structure is defended on which first-order motivating reasons may be particular while second-order derivative reasons preserve a shared normative landscape.

The Virtue of Trust and the Limits of Belief

Engages with Pamela Hieronymi's belief-centered account of trust, arguing that what makes misplaced trust regrettable is not the absence of belief, but the failure to cultivate a positive motivational attitude—a controllable relational virtue that sustains trust even when belief is unavailable.