D. Justin Coates      
      

I'm a professor of philosophy at the University of Houston, where I've been since 2013. I serve as the director of graduate studies for our MA program. I am also a faculty affiliate in the Elizabeth D. Rockwell Center for Ethics and Leadership. 

My research focuses on the normative dimensions of human agency, with a particular eye towards understanding the nature and ethics of blame, our status as morally responsibility agents, and the proper roles for wholeheartedness and ambivalence in a well-lived human life.

My book, In Praise of Ambivalence (Oxford University Press, 2023), explores the significant value of ambivalence, the wide-spread perils of wholeheartedness, and what it means to be a well-functioning agent. Here is a brief précis.

I teach courses in ethics, philosophy of action, and social philosophy. Recent courses have focused on the good life, George Eliot's Middlemarch, Latin American philosophy, the nature and moral significance of love, the ethics of immigration, and what hard choices might teach us about practical reason.

Here's a brief CV. Here's a link to my PhilPeople profile, from which you can access my work.