Dr. Carpenter specialises in ancient Greek philosophy, and Indian Buddhist philosophy. In both areas, her interest is in ethics broadly construed. She is particularly concerned with the place of reason in a well-lived life – what might reason be that it could be ethically relevant, or even required? Addressing this question opens up lines of inquiry in metaphysics, epistemology and philosophical psychology.

Dr. Carpenter’s work considers the intersections of these areas of philosophical inquiry in particular. In both Greece and India, metaphysics and epistemology mattered. Debates over what substance is, or what cause is, and debates over sources of knowledge or the nature of perception, are parts of wider disputes about the nature and domain of the ethical and of the human good. Some of Dr. Carpenter’s work focuses specifically on Plato, or on particular Buddhist texts. But some of her work also aims to create a conversation between these two philosophical traditions, as for instance,  in ‘Ethics of Substance’.

Dr. Carpenter works with Dr Rachael Wiseman (Durham), on the Integrity Project – integrityproject.org – which aims to philosophically map the contours of integrity and its various failures (pretence, hypocrisy, spinelessness, venality) in the contemporary world, and historically. Dr Carpenter and Dr Wiseman work with historians, political theorists, literary and cultural critics, sociologists and anthropologists to create fruitful conversation on the nature of integrity, its value for a person and a society, and the costs of its absence or impossibility.