From the Dec. 17, 2007, Princeton Weekly Bulletin
The University Center for Human Values has named its roster of visiting fellows and faculty for 2007-08. The visitors are devoting a year's residence at Princeton to research and writing about ethics and human values.
Laurance S. Rockefeller Professor for Distinguished Teaching
Donald Marquis is a professor of philosophy at the University of Kansas. He is the author of a widely reprinted and much-discussed essay on the ethics of abortion titled "Why Abortion Is Immoral." He also has written about physician-assisted suicide, the doctrine of double effect, the ethics of adultery and ethical issues involving randomized clinical trials. In the spring, he will teach an undergraduate course, "Medical Ethics: Life and Death Issues," in the Department of Philosophy and the University Center for Human Values. He also plans to work on a book on the ethics of abortion.
Harold T. Shapiro Postdoctoral Fellow in Bioethics
Bennett Foddy received his D.Phil. in bioethics from the University of Melbourne earlier this year. Foddy is developing a new account of addictive motivation that seeks to replace the dominant version that informs current philosophical and biological literature. He is the author of numerous articles, including “Can Addicted People Consent to the Prescription of Their Drug?” in Bioethics and “The Ethics of Genetic Testing in Sport” in International SportsMed Journal. He has written a chapter on “Performance Enhancement and the Spirit of Sport” for the forthcoming "Principles of Health Care Ethics," edited by Raanan Gillon.
Laurance S. Rockefeller Visiting Fellows
Arash Abizadeh is an assistant professor of political science at McGill University. His research focuses on 17th- and18th-century philosophy, particularly Hobbes and Rousseau; discourse ethics; and the relation between identity, nationalism, cosmopolitanism and democratic theory. While at Princeton, he will be working on a book on Rousseau that situates his political philosophy within the context of his philosophies of language, music and aesthetics, as well as his intellectual sources.
Matt Evans is an assistant professor of philosophy at New York University, where he specializes in ethics, philosophy of mind and the history of ancient Greek philosophy. He has published a series of papers on Plato’s moral psychology in Philebus, as well as a paper on the Epicurean conception of friendship. At Princeton, he will be exploring Plato’s resistance to the idea that the value of things is grounded in our disposition to value them.
Adam Kolber is an associate professor of law at the University of San Diego. His research focuses on the intersection of law and neuroscience, and he is the editor of the Neuroethics & Law Blog. Most recently, he has written about the legal and ethical implications of efforts to pharmaceutically dampen the intensity of traumatic memories. At Princeton, he will write about the theory of punishment and how advances in our understanding of the mind and brain ought to inform our punishment practices.
Anne Norton is a professor of political science and comparative literature at the University of Pennsylvania. Her most recent books are "Blood Rites of the Poststructuralists: Word, Flesh and Revolution," "95 Theses on Politics, Culture and Method" and "Leo Strauss and the Politics of American Empire." Her project at Princeton is titled "On the Muslim Question" and explores the figure of the Muslim in contemporary politics and political theory.
Aidan O’Neill, a Queen’s Counsel who practices law in Scotland and before the courts of England and Wales, will be the inaugural University Center for Human Values/Law and Public Affairs Fellow in Law and Normative Inquiry. He is an expert in discrimination and employment law, judicial review and issues of constitutional law. O'Neill has a particular interest in the interrelationship among EU law, human rights law and domestic law and has written three textbooks and numerous articles in these areas. While at Princeton, he will reflect on his experience in legal practice and write a book about the interaction between law, politics and religion, concentrating on the relationship between Christianity and democracy and on the law-morals debate.
Corey Robin is an associate professor of political science at Brooklyn College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. The author of "Fear: The History of a Political Idea," he also has written numerous articles on political repression, constitutional law, conservatism and modern political thought. At Princeton, he will be working on an intellectual history of counterrevolution, from the English Civil War through the Bush administration.
Miranda Spieler is an assistant professor of history at the University of Arizona. She specializes in French and French Caribbean history, with a focus on the role of law as a lever of police power and of lethal violence against marginal groups, including political enemies, convicts, ex-convicts, slaves, freed people and immigrants. At Princeton, she will be completing a study of colonial French Guiana during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Nadia Urbinati is the Nell and Herbert M. Singer Professor of Contemporary Civilization at Columbia University. She specializes in modern political thought with a particular focus on democratic theory, theories of representation and sovereignty. She is the author of "Representative Democracy: Principles and Genealogy" and "Mill on Democracy: From the Athenian Polis to Representative Government." At Princeton, she will be working on a new book on anti-democratic ideology as it developed in the West, particularly beginning in the 18th century and along with the process of democratization. Urbinati's research interests are associated with the Democracy and Human Values Project at the University Center for Human Values.
