Katie Peters,
PhD
I completed my PhD in Philosophy at the University of Connecticut, under the supervision of Heather Battaly and Tracy Llanera, with distinction, in May 2025.
My work focuses on the harms that arise in unequal and oppressive societies. As a feminist philosopher working primarily on moral responsibility and virtue and vice theory, I have three primary goals within this framework: 1) clarify the causes of these harms; 2) create normative frameworks of moral responsibility practices sensitive to the inequalities present in real life; and 3) explore the possibility of amelioration or reparation in these contexts.
My dissertation, “Far-Right Women and Moral Responsibility: Developing a Harm-Based Responsibility Account,” began with one simple question: why do we often dismiss far-right women when talking about the harms of extremist and hate groups? I argue that a standard view of moral responsibility, focused on what an agent knows and can control, will always fail to account for the simultaneous positions of privilege and oppression that the mostly white women of the far-right occupy. Using this insight from intersectional feminist theory, I propose adopting what I call the harm perspective - the idea that just responsibility practices require that we prioritize victims and the harms they suffer. Based on this perspective, I propose adopting a normative theory of moral responsibility that combines the advantages of attributionist views of responsibility and communicative views of blame, while allowing for the possibility of forward-looking practices of amelioration.
Aside from my dissertation, I work on projects in the field of virtue and vice epistemology, including grant projects in intellectual humility (Templeton Foundation).
See my article in Feminist Philosophy Quarterly: "Not My Fault: Far-Right Women and the Exculpatory Narratives of Misogyny and Infantilization."
My work focuses on the harms that arise in unequal and oppressive societies. As a feminist philosopher working primarily on moral responsibility and virtue and vice theory, I have three primary goals within this framework: 1) clarify the causes of these harms; 2) create normative frameworks of moral responsibility practices sensitive to the inequalities present in real life; and 3) explore the possibility of amelioration or reparation in these contexts.
My dissertation, “Far-Right Women and Moral Responsibility: Developing a Harm-Based Responsibility Account,” began with one simple question: why do we often dismiss far-right women when talking about the harms of extremist and hate groups? I argue that a standard view of moral responsibility, focused on what an agent knows and can control, will always fail to account for the simultaneous positions of privilege and oppression that the mostly white women of the far-right occupy. Using this insight from intersectional feminist theory, I propose adopting what I call the harm perspective - the idea that just responsibility practices require that we prioritize victims and the harms they suffer. Based on this perspective, I propose adopting a normative theory of moral responsibility that combines the advantages of attributionist views of responsibility and communicative views of blame, while allowing for the possibility of forward-looking practices of amelioration.
Aside from my dissertation, I work on projects in the field of virtue and vice epistemology, including grant projects in intellectual humility (Templeton Foundation).
See my article in Feminist Philosophy Quarterly: "Not My Fault: Far-Right Women and the Exculpatory Narratives of Misogyny and Infantilization."
