Research Interests

My research generally concerns philosophical issues related to ethics, moral psychology, interpersonal relationships, emotions and affectivity, health and illness, and questions about the development of habits and expertise. My recent research pursues three related lines of inquiry: (1) the development of empathy as an interpersonal and professional virtue, and pedagogical approaches to such development; (2) apparent “limit-cases” of clinical empathy where expression and deliberate action are inhibited or constrained (e.g., in the context of surgery with anesthetized patients, or in emergency medicine where patients may be unconscious); and (3) personal and philosophical accounts of living with chronic or terminal illness.

My educational background is in ethics and moral psychology, phenomenology and existentialism, ancient philosophy (especially Aristotle), applied ethics (especially Bioethics), the philosophy of emotions, and the history and philosophy of health, illness, and medicine. My doctoral research proposes a model of empathic expertise grounded in Edith Stein and Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenological accounts of intersubjectivity and modeled on the Aristotelian virtue of practical wisdom.

I gratefully acknowledge research support I have received from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), the University of Southern Denmark (SDU) and Danish Institute for Advanced Studies (DIAS), Emory University, and Toronto Metropolitan University.

Peer-Reviewed Article

  • “Grief, Phantoms, and Re-membering Loss” Journal of Speculative Philosophy Vol. 34, No. 3 (2020), 284-296. [Link]

Translation Work

  • E. Bartolini and C. Fullarton (2023). Translation of Claudia Baracchi, Friendship: The Future of an Ancient Gift. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. [from Italian to English]
  • C. Fullarton and U. Goldenbaum (2019). Translation of Antonio Lamarra, “Genetic Context and Initial Reception of Leibniz’s Monadologie: Leibniz, Wolff, and the Doctrine of Pre-established Harmony.” Leibniz Review, Vol. 29 (Dec. 2019): 185-99. [from French to English]

Recent Presentations & Invited Talks

  • “What Makes a Phenomenological Account of Empathy?” Atlantic Region Philosophers’ Association (ARPA) (14 Oct. 2023).
  • “From Basic to Radical Empathy,” Dalhousie University Philosophy Colloquium, Halifax, NS (21 April 2023).
  • “Empathizing with AI,” Digital Worlds Workshop (hosted online by the University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley) (21 April 2023).
  • “Sympathy and Care in Sophocles’s Philoctetes,” Keynote Talk – Undergraduate Ethics Conference, Roger Mudd Center for Ethics, Washington and Lee University, Online (6 March 2022). [PDF of program]

Public Talk

Here [link] is a description and short video of a public talk I gave on grief and mourning, as part of a Death Cafe organized by Dr. Michael Butler (University of Texas – Rio Grande Valley). The purpose of the talk was to create space for a public, philosophically-grounded discussion of death, dying, grief, and mourning — topics that are often considered taboo for public discussion and conversation.