Dr. Culak specializes in virtue ethics. His dissertation demarcates psychological, conceptual, and moral limits on what it is to be a compassionate person. Such demarcations include: what compassion can extend to, when compassion can fail to obtain without undermining the character trait of compassion, and the extent of the dispositions a compassionate person must have.

Most recently, Dr. Culak introduced two kinds of character traits -- one kind that is good yet beyond virtuous, and another that is bad yet not vicious. He argues that these kinds of traits are morally distinct, that the latter kind classifies those who are disposed to perform actions that are bad yet not wrong.