(a dazzle of zebras)

I am an associate professor of philosophy at Boston College. This site contains information about my writing and teaching.

I have written on a number of topics in ethics, from moral skepticism to the virtue of humor to the place of self-concern in living well. For the past few years, I’ve been working a lot on the philosophy of technology and ethical issues related to AI. In 2024-2025 year, I was a faculty fellow at Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good.

One way or another, pretty much all of my work relates to the good life. I think the “life” part of the good life is important and interesting. So I’ve thought a lot about the idea of a “life form” and our distinctly human form of life. This has led me to consider topics like function and teleology in livings things, and how organisms are self-movers. It has also led me to think about the specific shape of human lives and human agency— including topics like moral development in children and the role of narrative in understanding good human lives. You can find my writing on all these topics (and more!) in the Published Writings section.

As part of my work on AI and agency, I co-authored this (and open access) paper on the concept of “human level” AI, or AGI. For the last few years, I have been one of the co-chairs of a SACRU working group on “AI, Agency, and the Human Person.” Together with Prof William Hasselberger, I am currently writing a book on AI, with a special focus on care, caregiving, and social AI.

In addition, I currently working on a different book, tentatively titled The Puzzle of Utopia. This project examines the notion of “ideal circumstances for the good life,” paying special attention to some puzzles that arise when we try to specify those circumstances in detail — or even to determine what counts as a circumstance.

For over a decade, I’ve had the good fortune to teach at Boston College, an institution that values the liberal arts and supports them in many concrete ways (e.g., small class sizes; a robust and creative core curriculum; funding for new course development.) I’ve taught numerous times in PULSE, BC’s flagship service-learning program.

For the past few years, I’ve been regularly teaching three courses that each address a topic of great contemporary relevance: democracy, work, and migration. You can find more information about my teaching in the Syllabi section.

If you’d like to be in touch, please email me: lottm[at]bc.edu.

(Updated Aug 2025)