Helen Thomas

What’s up? My name is Helen E. Thomas (the middle initial is important to distinguish me from the journalist of the same name, to whom I hold no relation). My main areas of study are political philosophy, 19th century philosophy, and environmental ethics. 

My dissertation is on the ethics of democratic backsliding: that is, the process whereby a democratic society becomes authoritarian. The main question I wish to answer is what’s wrong with democratic backsliding, and which groups can permissibly take actions to combat it. A related question I am pondering is the value of democracy in the first place: why should our governments be run democratically as opposed to being run in some other way? A side project I am working on in political philosophy concerns the ethics of economic sanctions and consumer boycotts.

In 19th century philosophy, my main interests are in the speculative and historical materialist methodologies of Hegel and Marx, respectively, and how such methods of philosophical analysis motivate these thinkers’ substantive political views. Of particular interest here is how later thinkers (e.g., the so-called Frankfurt School) use such methods of philosophical analysis to inform their critiques of everyday life. However, I teach 19th century philosophy more broadly, covering every major thinker from the French Revolution to the turn of the 20th century.

In environmental ethics, I am interested in how economic arrangements affect public environmental goods. Moreover, I am also interested in writing on what sanctions actors may use to ensure governments comply with their climate targets. The (mis)management of the Colorado River is one area of importance to me, as I have lived in Arizona for my entire life. I am also interested in debates around to what extent we should either grant rights to or socialize the natural world to deal with the effects of climate change.

I received my MA from Arizona State University in 2021. My MA thesis concerned legal epistemology, specifically how judges and juries should evaluate different types of evidence. This thesis covered topics in philosophy of law, epistemology, and philosophy of language to give an account of individualized evidence as qualitatively different from bare statistical evidence. However, as the previous paragraphs indicate, my main areas of study have shifted since arriving at the University of Arizona in Fall 2022.

A lifelong Arizonan, I enjoy exploring Tucson and playing music in what scant free time I have.