Paul Tubig (He/Him/His)

Current Status: I am a Ph.D. candidate in the Philosophy Department. I am also a Neuroethics Research Associate with the Center for Neurotechnology (CNT) and affiliate member of the UW Disability Studies Program. In the 2019-2020 academic year, I will be undertaking various projects to expand philosophical engagement and discourse to diverse, underserved communities. I teach philosophy at the Washington Correction Center for Women (WCCW), as part of the Freedom Education Project Puget Sound (FEPPS) in-prison college program. Also, in collaboration with FEPPS, I am organizing an intercollegiate ethics bowl at WCCW to give access to incarcerated college students to participate in this exciting form of ethical engagement. And as one of the recipients of the Mellon Summer Fellowship for Public Projects in the Humanities, I will be working on a collaborative project (with Anna Bates) that explores the role of prisons in the history of philosophy with incarcerated students in WCCW. 

 

Research: I am most invested in topics in social and political philosophy, medical ethics, neuroethics, philosophy of disability, and philosophy of migration. Lately, my projects have focused on issues that lie on the intersection of these broader topics. My dissertation is on the normative implications of different understandings of disability in the sphere of healthcare justice. I am currently examining questions in neuroethics, like the moral limits of cognitive and moral neuroenhancement as a method of addressing injustices. I am also concerned with a myriad of questions related to migration and cities, such as gentrification, sanctuary cities, and the brain drain. I am broadly interested in understanding and critically examining how certain differences translate to disadvantage and other forms of serious moral harms, and what are appropriate responses to these vulnerabilities as a call of justice. 

 

Background: Prior to my tenure at UW, I received my M.A. in philosophy at San Francisco State University and B.A. in philosophy and cognitive science at University of California, San Diego. If I continue on this migratory trajectory, I expect to find myself (I hope!) in the Yukon under the Aurora Borealis. I am an enthusiastic supporter of the Golden State Warriors, a frequenter of coffeeshops, and advocate of a radical understanding of John Rawls (and it's not oxymoronic).