This post is part of an interview series with each of our incoming participants in the “Virtue & Happiness” 2016 Summer Seminar.

Valerie Wallace: Where are you from?

Joshua Skorburg: My name is Joshua August Skorburg, but I go by Gus. I’m from Missouri originally, and am currently a graduate student in Philosophy and member of the Institute for Cognitive and Decision Sciences at the University of Oregon.

VW: What is your research about?

JS: My research is in moral psychology, broadly construed to include the philosophy of mind (esp. embodied and extended approaches), ethics (esp. virtue theory, pragmatism, feminism), and epistemology (esp., again, virtue theory, pragmatism, feminism). I’m also learning research methods in physiological psychology (EKG, Impedance Cardiography) and neuroscience (EEG, fMRI).

In a sentence, I’m interested in how psychological science both informs and can be informed by philosophical theories of well-being and the good life.

VW: What are you looking forward to in the upcoming summer seminar?

JS: I’m looking forward to the summer seminar because I am often too quick to dismiss religious and theological insights in my research. And I think this is quite common among more empirically minded philosophers. I think the seminar will provide a unique opportunity for me to seriously engage with religious thinkers and their contributions to robust philosophical and empirical accounts of happiness and well-being. So I’m very much looking forward to the conversations across disciplines that I otherwise probably wouldn’t have.

VW: Tell me about your interests outside psychology.

JS: Lately, my non-academic interests have all been endurance-related: triathlons, marathon, long-distance backpacking.