My research tries to make sense of the idea of how actions get to be justified, and to make sense of how such facts relate to how we actually act. To understand the theory that I think succeeds in these tasks, it's best to first consider two rival theories.
First, consider this theory, which we might call passionalism: On this view, we are only motivated to act by our desires. People do what they want to, and nothing else. For this reason, talk of universal moral requirements is something of a sham. We might share desires, or I might have strong desires about how you behave, but neither of these things is really enough to vindicate the idea of genuine moral requirements.
Second, consider this theory, which we might call rationalism: On this view, we can be motivated by our beliefs about what it is right or wrong to do. Desires sometimes make us stray from the path of reason, but when we adequately fight off their influence we can do as we should. So there really are moral requirements on how we act, and desires are irrational impulses to avoid living as we should.
It seems to me that each of these theories gets one thing right. Passionalism is right insofar as it emphasizes the importance of desire. Our actions can usually be explained by our desires, and if there are moral requirements, they need to be able to connect up with our desires if they are not to be plain irrelevant. But rationalism is right in so far as it finds a place for value judgements to affect how we behave, which is surely correct.
So my project is to find a third theory that takes the best from each of these views, and jettisons the worst. That theory is this: desires just are attitudes about value. For example, to want some coffee is to think that there's at least some good reason to get some coffee. On this theory, we can do justice to the idea that both our desires and our value judgements play an important role in motivation. Morality is not a sham, but we can only be motivated to comply with it when we have desires which are appropriately sensitive to moral values.
Pursuing this project leads me into various areas, but the central goal at stake is always the same: to understand how we do live our lives, and to understand how we should live our lives.