N. G. Laskowski
N. G. Laskowski
Associate Professor in the Philosophy Department at University of Maryland, College Park
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Research
Research
I'm a philosopher working on the following topics:
Metaethics: What is morality? What are things (if they're things at all) like obligations and reasons? What would they have to be like to be a part of the natural world?
Ethics: How do the ways we conceptualize virtues and vices hinder or help our own moral development? Some presuppositions that we make about each other (e.g. whether you would know this or that, whether you would have done this or that without being asked, etc.) seem wrong. Why? What is it to be honest?
Social Philosophy: What's the best way(s) to make sense of sex, gender, disability and other categories of immense social significance, and our thought and talk about them?
Philosophy of Computing: Are humans dispensable in various domains of inquiry? What would it take for AI systems to be phenomenally conscious? Can such systems reason morally?
My approach to philosophy is unapologetically collaborative, with a number of my papers having more than one author.
Teaching
Teaching
I'm a 1st-generation college graduate (my parents didn't attend college, theirs didn't...), committed to making non-traditional students feel like they belong in the classroom.
Recent and upcoming teaching:
Spring 2026
Spring 2026
Phil 409: Social ontology
Phil 438: Philosophical Anarchism and Political Normativity
Fall 2025
Fall 2025
Phil 341: Ethical Theory
Phil 338: Life's Meaning
Personal
Personal
I was raised by my maternal grandma in a single-bedroom apartment in Roselle, New Jersey, ~ 20 miles SW of NYC. My wonderful spouse and I were married by Elvis. We have a delightful kindergartener and a smiley infant. We live in DC.
Writing
Writing
Selected papers in progress
On the exhaustive natural grounds of particular moral facts
On how gender unrealism solves various problems
On how we conceptualize vices
On ambiguity and gender terms
On Ross, Perry, and analytic naturalism's history
Forthcoming (as such or provisionally)
Metaethical Reductive Naturalism for Humans, Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Human Nature
Nonconcordance and the Metaphysics of Sexual Arousal and Orientation, The Moral Psychology of Sexual Passion
Robust vs Formal Normativity II: No Gods, No Masters, No Authoritative Normativity (w/ N. Howard), Oxford Handbook of Metaethics
2026
Skepticism About Ought Simpliciter Skepticism, Inquiry
Gender Unrealism (w/ N. Howard), Ergo
Honesty and Bad Faith (w/ N. Howard), Political Philosophy
2025
Honest AI, Oxford Intersections: AI in Society
2024
The Stuff That Matters, Oxford Studies in Metaethics
AI Language Models Cannot Replace Human Research Participants (w/ J. Harding, W. D’Alessandro, and R. Long), AI & Society
2023
Categorical Phenomenalism about Sexual Orientation (w/ T. Whitlow) Philosophy and Phenomenological Research
2022
Practical Reasons for Belief Without Stakes (w/ S. Herndandez), Analytic Philosophy
2021
Wronging by Requesting (w/ K. Silver), Oxford Studies in Normative Ethics
The World is Not Enough (w/ N. Howard), Noûs
What Makes Normative Concepts Normative (w/ S. Hernandez), Southwest Philosophy Review
Phenomenal Concepts as Complex Demonstratives (w/ N. Howard), Res Philosophica
2020
Resisting Reductive Realism, Oxford Studies in Metaethics
Moral Constraints on Gender Concepts, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice
2019
The Sense of Incredibility in Ethics, Philosophical Studies
Moral Realism, Speech Act Diversity, and Expressivism, The Philosophical Quarterly
2018
Epistemic Modesty in Ethics, Philosophical Studies
Conceptual Analysis in Metaethics (w/ S. Finlay), Routledge Handbook of Metaethics
Reductivism, Nonreductivism, and Incredulity about Streumer’s Error Theory, Analysis Reviews
“Double Review” of On What Matters Vol. 3 by Derek Parfit and Does Anything Really Matter? Parfit on Objectivity ed. Peter Singer, Ethics
2017
Review of Speech and Morality by Terence Cuneo, Journal of Moral Philosophy
Rethinking Reductive Realism in Ethics, Dissertation, University of Southern California
2015
Non-Analytical Naturalism and the Nature of Normative Thought: A Reply to Parfit, Journal of Ethical and Social Philosophy
2014
How to Pull a Metaphysical Rabbit Out of an End-Relational Semantic Hat, Res Philosophica
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