ABOUT ME
There is an old story about someone who found a treasure on a plot of land, who then sold all their possessions to buy the land and get the treasure. I remembered this story one Saturday after midnight, on Edgewood Avenue in Atlanta in the summer of 2016, while standing in the back of a club that is almost never open and perceiving some fundamental connection between morality and being. At the time, it seemed to me that this idea was a treasure. I am still in the process of excavating my Edgewood vision.
In 2020, I left my position as a lecturer in Clemson University's Department of English and moved back to Atlanta. Currently, I am a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at Emory University's Oxford College.
PUBLICATIONS
2022
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
2021
Philosophical Psychology
Beal, Bree. "The Polyphony Principle." Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45, 2022, e222.
Beal, Bree. "The Nonmoral Conditions of Moral Cognition." Philosophical Psychology, 2021.
https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2021.1942811
2021
Consciousness and Cognition
Beal, Bree and Guga Gogia. "Cognition in Moral Space: A Minimal Model." Consciousness and Cognition, 2021, 92. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.concog.2021.103134.
2020
Perspectives on Psychological Science
Beal, Bree. “What are the Irreducible Basic Elements of Morality? A Critique of the Debate over Monism and Pluralism in Moral Psychology.” Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2020, 15(2), pp. 273-290. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619867106
2018
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
Beal, Bree, and Philippe Rochat. “Innate Valuation, Existential Framing, and One Head for Multiple Moral Hats.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, vol. 41, 2018, p. e38., doi:10.1017/S0140525X17000632.
EDUCATION + EXPERIENCE
2012-2018
PhD
Emory University
Institute for the Liberal Arts
I earned my PhD from Emory University's Institute for the Liberal Arts (ILA) in 2018. My dissertation was a "Dostoevskyan" model of moral psychology. While at Emory, I also did some cognitive neuroscience research in the Dilks Lab.
2010-2011
Master of Arts
Arizona State University
New College
I earned my Masters of Arts, with a focus on Philosophy, Rhetoric, and Literature, from Arizona State University's New College in Decemer, 2011.
2000-2004
Bachelor of Music
Grand Canyon State University
I earned a bachelor's of music, vocal performance, in 2004.
CURRENT RESEARCH PROJECTS
Toward an Ontological Turn in Moral Psychology
Currently in development. I'm working on an approach to modeling moral cognition that emphasizes how one's framing of reality determines moral judgments. The key insight is similar that that which motivated the "ontological turn" in anthropology.
Two Distinctions in "Methodological Bracketing"
In an article in press at Current Anthropology, I analyze Nadya Pohran's proposal for a new methodology in cultural anthropology--Belief Inclusive Research, which is proposed as an alternative to "methodological bracketing." I argue that this approach is already consistent with the dominant forms of methodological bracketing, when these approaches are properly characterized.
The Case Against Morality as Cooperation
I'm currently working on a systematic refutation of the popular view that morality can be defined scientifically in terms of the function of cooperation.