Philosophy Department

Education

• Ph.D., Philosophy, Yale, 2011

About

Tina Rulli received her PhD in Philosophy from Yale University in 2011. She was a postdoctoral fellow in the Clinical Center Bioethics Department at the National Institutes of Health from 2011-2013. She joined the UC Davis Department of Philosophy in 2014.

Research Focus

Tina Rulli’s research is in normative ethics, applied ethics, and bioethics. On the applied side, she is interested in applications of the duty to rescue and the ethics of procreation and adoption. On the normative, theoretical side, her work spans across population ethics, the demands of morality, and the possibility for moral options.

Publications

• Rulli, T. “On Value Dependence and Meliorative Projects,” Inquiry, Invited Symposium on Samuel Scheffler’s Why Worry About Future Generations (Online, May 2020).

• Rulli, T. “Conditional Obligations,” Social Theory and Practice Vol 46, No. 2 (April 2020): 365-390.

• Rulli, T. “Reproductive CRISPR Does Not Cure Disease,” Bioethics (September 2019 Early View).
• Rulli, T. “CRISPR and the Ethics of Gene Drive,” in The Handbook of Philosophy and Public Policy, ed. David Boonin, Palgrave-Macmillan, 2018, pp. 509-521.
• Rulli, T. & Mackay, D.** “The Duty to Rescue and Investigators’ Obligations,” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal Vol. 27, no. 1 (2017): 71-106.
• Rulli, T. The mitochondrial replacement 'therapy' myth, Bioethics (Early View Dec 2016).
• Rulli, T. "For dog's sake, adopt!" in Pets and People: The Ethics of Our Relationships with Companion Animals, ed. Christine Overall, Oxford University Press, 2017, pp. 172-186.
• Rulli, T. The ethics of procreation and adoption, Philosophy Compass 11/6 (2016): 305-315.
• Rulli, T. What is the value of three-parent IVF? Hastings Center Report Vol. 46, Issue 4, July/August 2016:38-47.
• Rulli, T., & Worsnip, A. (2016) IIA, rationality, and the individuation of options, Philosophical Studies (173) 1: 205-221
• Rulli, T., & Wendler, D. (2015) The duty to take rescue precautions, Journal of Applied Philosophy, Early View: March 2015
• Rulli, T. (2014) Preferring a genetically-related child, Journal of Moral Philosophy, online November 2014.
• Rulli, T. (2014) The unique value of adoption, In Family Making: Contemporary Ethical Challenges, Francoise Baylis and Carolyn McLeod (Eds.), Oxford University Press.
• Rulli, T., & Millum, J. (2014) Rescuing the duty to rescue, Journal of Medical Ethics.
• Rulli, T., Emanuel, E., & Wendler, D. (2012) The moral duty to buy health insurance, Journal of the American Medical Association 308/2: 137-138.

Teaching

Tina Rulli teaches courses in normative ethics and bioethics, including a large Introduction to Bioethics lecture course (PHI 015) and a smaller, discussion-focused upper division undergraduate course in Bioethics (PHI 121). Her Ethical Theories course (PHI 116) focuses on normative ethical theories—theories about right and wrong action and how to live a good life.

Awards

Hellman Fellow, Hellman Fellows Fund, 2017-2018

UC Davis Institute of Social Sciences Individual Research Grant, 2015–2016