Anonymity again

I previously changed the "About" block, and made some comments about anonymity. After some thought, I've reversed that decision. My name now appears in the "About" block.

My reasons for this are threefold: One, given that google turns up this site, my chances of staying anonymous are slim anyway. I realised that my real choice is whether or not to delete the site. Second, this first point was made forceful when a fellow graduate student stumbled across this place and worked out it was me. Third, after a short discussion with my supervisor, I'm somewhat inclined to think that I needn't worry, so long as I don't say anything too outrageous.

So while I'm doing that, I may as well disclose a little about myself.

My name is Alex Gregory, I'm studying for my PhD at the University of Reading under Jonathan Dancy.

Reading is an odd university, in that it is good but not brilliant for most subjects (#25 in the UK), but the philosophy department here punches above weight generally (=#9 in the UK), and much more so for meta-ethics and normative ethics (Group 4 internationally for both, so roughly =#11 internationally, and below only Oxford in the UK).

The title with which I applied for my PhD was "Can we justify moral beliefs by appeal to the general nature of reasons?". This is one in sense vague, but does sucessfully convey my more general interest of connecting some of the abstract claims we make about reasons (and in meta-ethics more generally) with some determinate normative conclusions.