VII—Faculty

George J. Agich
B.A. Duquense University
M.A. University of Texas at Austin
Ph.D. University of Texas at Austin
Adjunct Professor of Philosophy
F.J. O’Neil Chair in Clinical Bioethics and Chairman, Department of Bioethics, Cleveland Clinic

Dr. Agich holds appointments in clinical medicine at Ohio State University and in bioethics at the Cleveland Clinic Transplant Center and the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. He is the author of Autonomy and Long-Term Care (Oxford University Press, 1993) and over fifty articles and over thirty book chapters on medical ethics. He has also edited two books, Responsibility in Health Care (D. Reidel, 1986) and The Price of Health (D. Reidel, 1986). Dr. Agich is the chair of the International Association of Bioethics’ Network on Bioethics Education, the past president of the Association for the Advancement of Philosophy and Psychiatry and the past chair of the Association for Faculty in Medical Humanities. His current research interests include the ethical issues involved in organ donation and transplantation, and the process of ethics consultations in a clinical setting.

Marvin Belzer
Associate Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Northwest Nazarene College
Ph.D. Duke University

Professor Belzer joined the philosophy faculty in 1991, and served as Chair from 1995 to 1999. He is a specialist in deontic logic and its applications in ethics, especially to reasoning with defeasible normative principles. Current research interests also include metaphysics, especially personal identity and buddhist philosophy. Recent and forthcoming publications include "Notes on Relation R" (Analysis, 1995), "Parfit and the Budda: Do They Agree About Personal Identity?" and "Logics of Defeasible Normative Reasoning," co-authored with Barry Loewer in Defeasible Deontic Logic, edited by Donald Nute. Professor Belzer teaches graduate courses in modal logic and in metaphysics, and undergraduate courses in philosophy of mind, philosophy of religion, and meditation.

Michael Bradie
Professor of Philosophy
B. S. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
M. A. Boston University
Ph.D University of Hawaii

Since coming to Bowling Green in 1968, Professor Bradie has taught courses in a wide range of areas. His primary interests are in the philosophy of science, epistemology and logic. He has been involved in developing interdisciplinary courses at the graduate and undergraduate levels in the philosophy of biology and the philosophy of physics. Professor Bradie has published numerous articles on the philosophy of science and epistemology. His most recent publications include "Assessing Evolutionary Epistemology," "Darwin and the Moral Status of Animals," "What Does Evolutionary Biology Tell Us About Philosophy and Religion," and "Models, Rhetoric and Science." A book on evolution and ethics, The Secret Chain: Evolution and Ethics, was published by SUNY Press in 1995. In addition to his professional roles in Bowling Green, Professor Bradie has been a Visiting Scholar at the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard (1984), the History and Philosophy of Science Department, Indiana University (1986) and a Visiting Fellow at the Center for the Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh (1992-93).

Donald Callen
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Roberts Wesleyan College
M.A. SUNY, Brockport
Ph.D. Temple University

Professor Callen's teaching and research interests are the philosophy of art, Continental philosophy, and post-modern theory. In addition to courses in aesthetics and philosophy of film, he also teaches courses in contemporary French philosophy, focusing especially on Derrida, Lacan and new thinkers such as Lipovetsky and Nancy. Currently his research is focused on continental approaches to environmental philosophy. He has published many articles on the philosophy of art including a recent article, "Stories of Sublimely Good Character" (Philosophy and Literature). He has also co-edited a volume of papers in aesthetics by Monroe Beardsley, The Aesthetic Point of View, and volumes of proceedings from the BGSU conferences in Applied Philosophy. Recent publications include an article on Beardsley which appeared in the Oxford Companion to Aesthetics.

Christian Coons
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
B.A. University of California, Davis
Ph. D. University of California, Davis

Christian Coons was recently hired to a tenure-track position in philosophy at BG.  He came to BG from the University of  California at Davis. Christian has already published in Ethics, perhaps the top journal for work in ethics and related areas. He was awarded the prestigious Charlotte Newcombe Dissertation Fellowship for the 2003-4 year and he was also awarded the Michael V. Wedin Teaching Award in 2003 by the UC, Davis philosophy department.   His research interests include population ethics, moral epistemology, theory selection in normative ethics, and axiology.  He hopes to one day justify a substantive normative claim without using any substantive normative assumptions.

Kathleen Marie Dixon
Associate Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Loyola of the South
M.A. University of Tennessee
Ph.D. University of Tennessee

Professor Dixon, a clinically trained medical ethicist, teaches courses in medical ethics and the philosophies of health, death and dying. Her interests in gender, health care and social constructionism led her to develop the courses "Sex and the Body Politics" and "Illness Chronicles," as well as courses on the history of feminism and post-modernism. She also teaches a graduate level, transdisciplinary introduction to medical ethics. Professor Dixon serves as a clinical ethicist and consultant for regional health care facilities and programs. She recently wrote and co-produced a documentary companioning the PBS Bill Moyers series On Our Own Terms. Her one-hour program, Let Their Voices Be Heard: Children’s Stories of Grief, explores children’s understanding and experience of death and dying. Professor Dixon’s recent publications include “Death and Rememberance: Addressing the Costs of Learning Anatomy through the Memorialization of Donors” (D. Eber and A. Neal, eds., Memory and Representation), "Minding the Uterus: C.T. Javert and Psychosomatic Abortion" (Gravon et al, Writing and Speaking the Body: Feminist and Rhetorical Studies of Reproductive Sciences and Technologies), "The Quality of Mercy: Reflections on Provider Assisted Suicide" (The Journal of Clinical Ethics), "Responsibility, Reproductive Choice, and the Limits of Appropriate State Intervention: The Battle Over RU 486" (D. Wueste, ed., Professional Ethics and Social Responsibility), and "Longing for Mercy, Requesting Death: Pharmaceutical Care and Pharmaceutically Assisted Death, co-authored with Dr. Karen Kier (The American Journal of Health Systems Pharmacy, 1998). Her current research is on assisted death, advance directives, and psychosomatology in American obstetrics and gynecology.

R. G. Frey
Professor of Philosophy
B.A. College of William and Mary
M.A. University of Virginia
D. Phil. Oxford University

Professor Frey is the author of numerous articles and books in ethical theory, applied ethics, the history of ethics, and social/political theory. New works of his awaiting publication are books on Joseph Butler (Oxford University Press), a critical edition of Butler's ethical writings, a volume of essays on topics in applied ethics entitled Ethics, Animals and Medicine, and the first of two volumes on utilitarianism. He recently published Euthanasia and Physician-Assisted Suicide (Cambridge University Press), with Gerald Dworkin and Sissela Bok. Professor Frey teaches courses in all the areas of his research. Previously, he tutored students at Oxford and taught in the Universities of Liverpool and Toronto. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Social Philosophy and Policy Center in Bowling Green, a Fellow of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Georgetown University , and a Fellow of the Westminister Institute of Ethics and Public Policy at the University of Western Ontario, Canada.

Daniel Jacobson
Associate Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Yale University
Ph.D. University of Michigan

Professor Jacobson came to Bowling Green from the Department of Philosophy at Franklin and Marshall College. His areas of specialization are ethical theory, aesthetics, moral psychology and John Stuart Mill. His doctorate is from the University of Michigan, where he wrote a dissertation entitled "Ethical Perspective: On Narrative Art and Moral Perception." He is currently in the process of publishing a book manuscript through Oxford University Press entitled Rational Sentimentalism which he has co-authored with Justin D'Arms.

Louis I. Katzner
Professor of Philosophy, Acting Chair AY 2007/8
A.B. Brown University
M.A. University of Michigan
Ph.D. University of Michigan

Professor Katzner has been at Bowling Green since 1968. A member of the department during the 1970s and early 1980s, he played a central role in developing the applied philosophy focus and the Ph.D. program. From 1985-98 he continued teaching on a limited basis while serving as Vice Provost for Research and Dean of the Graduate College. His research, publications, and teaching have focused on ethics and social philosophy. He is best known for his work on affirmation action and discrimination -- "Is the Favoring of Women and Blacks in Employment and Educational Opportunities Justified?" (Feinberg & Gross, Philosophy of Law). He has also taught philosophy to children and published in this area as well. Most recently, his scholarship has focused on issues in graduate education.

Richard H. Lineback
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
B.A. University of Cincinnati
M.A. Indiana University
Ph.D. Indiana University

Professor Lineback came to Bowling Green in 1965 and served as Chair of the Department from 1968-1972. Professor Lineback's primary teaching interests are in medical ethics. He has taught at the Medical College of Ohio and serves on several hospital ethics committees. Professor Lineback recently retired as Director of the Philosophy Documentation Center which he and other members of the Department founded in 1968. However, he continues to serve as editor of The Philosopher's Index and to teach in the area of medical ethics.

Fred D. Miller, Jr.
Professor of Philosophy
B.A. Portland State University
M.A. University of Washington
Ph.D. University of Washington

Professor Miller came to Bowling Green in 1972 with a specialization in ancient Greek Philosophy, especially Aristotle. His interests include social philosophy, philosophy of law, business ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy in science fiction. Currently he is the Executive Director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center which he, along with other members of the Department, founded in 1981. He is the author of Nature, Justice and Rights in Aristotle's Politics (Oxford University Press, 1995). He has published articles on Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek philosophers in Philosophical Review, the Review of Metaphysics, Philosophical Quarterly, and Ancient Philosophy. His recent essays on classical philosophy include "Aristotle on Rationality in Action," "Aristotle on Natural Law and Justice," “Aristotle’s Philosophy of Soul,” and "Plato on the Parts of the Soul." He also contributed the article "Aristotle's Naturalism" to The Cambridge History of Ancient Political Thought (Cambridge University Press, 2000), "Aristotle's Political Philosophy," to the Stanford (Internet) Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://plato.stanford.edu), and "Classical Political Thought" to The Encyclopedia of Classical Philosophy (Greenwood Press, 1997). He is currently at work on A History of Philosophy of Law from the Ancient Greeks to the Later Scholastics. In October, 1998 he was elected President of the Society for Ancient Greek Philosophy.

Jeffrey Moriarty
Assistant Professor of Philosophy
A.B. Princeton University
Ph.D. Rutgers University

Professor Moriarty joined the department in 2005, having previously taught for three years at California State University at Long Beach, where he also served as Graduate Director from 2004-2005 and the Director of the Center for Applied Ethics, from 2003 to 2005. He completed a PhD at Rutgers University where he wrote his dissertation on "Just Deserts: The Significance of Desert to Distributive Justice". Beside social and political philosophy and normative ethics, his research interests also include business ethics and its intersection with political philosophy, especially in relation to issues of justice and wages, and the works of W.D. Ross. His most recent publications include: “Ross on Desert and Punishment,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 87:2 (2006), “The Epistemological Argument Against Desert,” Utilitas 17:2 (2005), and “Do CEOs Get Paid Too Much?” Business Ethics Quarterly 15:2 (2005).  

Jeffrey Paul
Professor of Philosophy
B.A. University of Cincinnati
Ph.D. Brandeis University

Jeffrey Paul founded the Social Philosophy and Policy Center at Bowling Green with Fred Miller, Jr. In 1981. He is presently Associate Director of the Center. Professor Paul joined the Department in 1980. He has also taught philosophy at Northern Kentucky University and the University of Cincinnati. In 1981 he was a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. Professor Paul is the co-editor, with Richard Epstein, of Labor Law and the Employment Market (Transaction, 1985). He has published essays on ethics and political philosophy in The Monist, The Personalist, Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, The Review of Metaphysics, Reason Papers, Orbis, Philosophical Review, The Journal of Medical Ethics, The History of Political Thought, The Hastings Center Report, and in John Gray and Z.A. Pleczynski’s collection Conceptions of Liberty in Political Theory. His collection, Reading Nozick, was published by Rowman and Allenheld in 1981. Professor Paul is an Associate Editor of Social Philosophy & Policy as well as co-editor of many collections of essays on moral and political philosophy for Cambridge University Press and Basil Blackwell.

Ellen Frankel Paul
Professor of Political Science
Philosophy Faculty by Courtesy
B.A. Brandeis University
Ph.D. Harvard University

Professor Paul serves as Deputy Director of the Social Philosophy and Policy Center. Her duties there include editing the journal, Social Philosophy & Policy, published by Cambridge University Press, editing a book series for SUNY Press, and editing a book series which the Center co-publishes with Transaction Publishers. Professor Paul's research interests are currently in First Amendment and anti-discrimination law, and she is the author and editor of numerous publications. Some of her most recent publications include works as the co-editor of Self-Interest (Cambridge University Press, 1997), and Scientific Innovation, Philosophy, and Public Policy (Cambridge University Press, 1996).

Donald Scherer
Professor Emeritus of Philosophy
A.B. Wayne State University
Ph.D Cornell University

Professor Scherer joined the philosophy faculty in 1967, having previously taught at Hobart College. He teaches courses in environmental philosophy and maintains interests in global issues of human and environmental wellbeing. Professor Scherer welcomes working with students in these areas. His recent publications include Upstream/Downstream: Issues in Environmental Ethics (Temple, 1998), “Between Theory and Practice: Some Thoughts on Restoration” (Restoration and Management Notes, Winter, 1994), “Ethics of Sustainable Energy” (Encyclopedia of Energy Technology and the Environment, Wiley & Sons, 1995) and “Evolution, Human Living and the Practice of Ecological Restoration” (Environmental Ethics, Winter, 1995). In Two Paths Toward Peace, co-authored with James Child (Temple, 1991), he develops a personal teleological pacifism presented in dialectic with just war views.

David Shoemaker
Associate Professor of Philosophy, Department Chair (on leave AY 2007/8)
B.A. Houghton College
M.A. University of California, Irvine
Ph.D. University of California, Irvine
Professor Shoemaker joined us in the Fall of 2004, coming from the sunny climes of Northridge, California, where he taught at California State University. His PhD dissertation was entitled “Persons, Selves, and Ethical Theory.” He teaches courses in contemporary ethical theory, metaphysics (with a particular focus on questions about personal identity and agency), and social & political philosophy. He also has interests in the areas of applied ethics, especially bioethics, and in moral psychology. His publications include: “Caring, Identification and Agency,” Ethics, October 2003; “The Irrelevance/Incoherence of Non-Reductivism About Personal Identity,” Philo, Fall/Winter 2002; “Why Can’t We All Just Get Along: Human Variety and Game Theory in Hobbes’s State of Nature,” The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Fall 2002; “Disintegrated Persons and Distributive Principles,” Ratio, March 2002.

Steven Wall
Associate Professor of Philosophy (on leave AY 2007/8)
B.A. Duke University
M.A. Columbia University
M. Phil. Columbia University
D. Phil. Oxford University

Professor Wall is the author of two books: Perfectionism and Neutrality: Essays in Liberal Theory (co-edited with George Klosko, forthcoming from Rowan and Littlefield) and Liberalism and Constraint (Cambridge University Press, 1998). He received his D.Phil. from Oxford University in 1997 and his dissertation, Liberalism, Perfection and Restraint won the 1997 Political Studies Association's Sir Ernest Barker Prize for Best Dissertation in Political Philosophy. Since the Fall of 1999 he has taught in the Philosophy Department at Kansas State University. He specializes in political philosophy.

Sara Worley
Associate Professor of Philosophy and Graduate Director
B. A. Reed College
Ph.D University of Pittsburgh

Professor Worley came to Bowling Green in 1991 after completing her graduate work at the University of Pittsburgh. Her research and teaching interests are primarily in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, metaphysics, and feminism. With respect to the philosophy of mind, she is especially interested in questions of mental causation, and in finding a way of reconciling the "manifest image" of human beings, according to which we are rational agents, responsible for our actions, with the "scientific image" of human beings, according to which we are mere physical objects whose behavior can be completely explained by the laws of nature. Related interests in the philosophy of science and metaphysics include questions about causation, explanation, and realism (both scientific and metaphysical). Recent publications include "Belief and Consciousness" (Philosophical Psychology, 1997), and Determination and Mental Causation" (Erkenntnis, 1997), "Mental Causation and Explanatory Exclusion" (Erkenntnis, 1993) and "Feminism, Objectivity and Analytic Philosophy" (Hypatia, 1995). She is currently doing research on consciousness, mental causation and agency.