Overview
Dr. Castro's research includes two tracks.
One track follows her graduate work, which is centered in Kant scholarship and informed by current science, with a broadly interdisciplinary aim. She is currently working on a book about Kant's metaethics, specifically how to establish a metaphysics of morals as a non-empirical science. More broadly in this track, Dr. Castro is interested in the family of phenomena involved in acting or cognizing as if, in a wide range of contexts that include an imagination-centered Kantian theory of autism, algorithmic agency and social justice, cognitive shifts in philosophy of humor, Immanuel Kant鈥檚 peculiar moral imperative to "act as if your maxim were to become by your will a universal law of nature" (aka Kant's formula of nature), and Japanese philosophy of art (mastery and performance in rengaand Noh).
The second track in Biomedical Humanities derives from taking a philosophical perspective towards her work on the Human Genome Project at UCLA and support work for the Jefferson Institute of Molecular Medicine. This track includes current issues in philosophy of medicine and cyberethics. She serves as the founding Director of The Academic Center for Biomedical and Health Humanities(HealthHum), which will support collaboration from campus to community in conjunction with the downtown Wichita Biomedical Campus.
At WSU Professor Castro has taught History of Ethics, Metaethics, Ethical Theory, Philosophy of Law, Philosophy of Medicine, Philosophy of Feminism, Philosophy of the Arts, Business Ethics, Philosophy of Humor, Ethics and Computers, Biomedical Engineering Ethics, and Ethics of Big Data among others. In Spring 2025 Dr. Castro is teaching PHIL 315/H Late Modern Philosophy, PHIL 354 Ethics and Computers, and PHIL 215 Ethics of Big Data and AI.
