MATTHEW F. SHEA. UCLA Health Ethics Center Le Conte Ave CHS Los Angeles, CA 90095

Transcription

1 Fall 2018 MATTHEW F. SHEA UCLA Health Ethics Center Le Conte Ave CHS Los Angeles, CA Website: EDUCATION Ph.D. Philosophy, Saint Louis University (2018) B.A. Honors Philosophy, Boston College (2009), summa cum laude Areas of Specialization: Moral Philosophy, Bioethics, Clinical Ethics Areas of Competence: Philosophy of Religion, Epistemology, Aristotle, Aquinas Dissertation: Made for Each Other: A Second-Person Approach to Well-Being and Natural Law- Virtue Ethics Committee: Eleonore Stump (supervisor), Jeffrey Bishop, Daniel Haybron, Mark Murphy PROFESSIONAL POSITIONS Clinical Ethics Fellow, University of California, Los Angeles, UCLA Health Ethics Center (2018 present) Instructor, Saint Louis University, Philosophy Department ( ) Robert J. Henle Research Assistant to Professor Eleonore Stump, Saint Louis University, Philosophy Department ( ) PUBLICATIONS Articles Human Nature and Moral Status in Bioethics. Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 43 (2018):

2 Aquinas on God-Sanctioned Stealing. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly 92:2 (2018): God, Evil, and Occasionalism. (with C.P. Ragland) Religious Studies 54 (2018): A Natural Fit: Natural Law Theory, Virtue Epistemology, and the Value of Knowledge. Journal of Philosophical Research 42 (2017): Thomistic Eudaimonism, Virtue, and Well-Being. Southwest Philosophy Review 33:1 (2017): Books and Edited Volumes 40 Years of Beauchamp and Childress s Principles of Biomedical Ethics, editor (with Jeffrey Bishop), special issue of The Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (forthcoming). TEACHING EXPERIENCE Medical Ethics, Saint Louis University (Spring 2018) Ethics, Saint Louis University (Fall 2017) Introduction to Philosophy, Saint Louis University (Summer 2017) Western Philosophy (12 th grade), Saint Sebastian s School ( ) CONFERENCE PRESENTATIONS, WORKSHOPS, & PANEL DISCUSSIONS Disabled Human Flourishing 2019 American Philosophical Association Central Division Meeting. Denver, CO. A Relationship-Centered Account of The Good Life 2018 American Catholic Philosophical Association Meeting, Panel Discussion on Thomistic Flourishing: A Second-Person Approach, with James Kintz and Andrew Pinsent. San Diego, CA. The Quality of Life is Not Strained: Disability, Human Nature, and Quality of Life 2018 American Society for Bioethics and Humanities Meeting, Early Career Advisor Program. Anaheim, CA Arete Initiative Medical Ethics Summer Seminar. Hosted by the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Durham, NC.

3 Natural Goodness is Good for You: Well-Being and the Rational Authority of Human Nature 2018 American Philosophical Association Eastern Division Meeting. Savannah, GA Eudaimonia Conference. Hosted by the Eudaimonia Institute at Wake Forest University. Winston-Salem, NC. Intuitionism, Conflicts of Duties, and Practical Wisdom 2018 Midsouth Philosophy Conference. Rhodes College. Memphis, TN Felician Ethics Conference. Hosted by the Felician Institute for Ethics and Public Affairs at Felician University. Rutherford, NJ. Panel Discussion on The Question of Ethics in Politics, with Ruth Groff, Wynne Moskop, and Richard Quirk. Sponsored by the Political Science Club at Saint Louis University. Saint Louis, MO. November Religious Experience and Alternative Possibilities Skepticism 2017 Evangelical Philosophical Society Annual Meeting. Providence, RI Kansas Philosophical Society Meeting. University of Kansas. Lawrence, KS. Divine Concurrence and Evil 2016 Special Divine Action Symposium at the American Academy of Religion Meeting. Part of the Special Divine Action Project hosted by the Ian Ramsey Centre for Science and Religion at the University of Oxford. San Antonio, TX Society of Christian Philosophers Midwest Regional Meeting. Evangel University. Springfield, MO. Thomistic Eudaimonism 2016 Southwestern Philosophical Society Meeting. Corpus Christi, TX Society of Christian Philosophers Eastern Regional Meeting. Rutgers University. New Brunswick, NJ. PRESENTED COMMENTS Comments on J. Reese Faust s Narrative and Affect: A Moral Psychology of Collective Responsibility Midsouth Philosophy Conference. Rhodes College. Memphis, TN. Comments on James Cain s Free Will, Resiliency, and the Flip-Flopping Argument Central States Philosophical Association Meeting. Washington University. St. Louis, MO. AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIPS Arny and Anne Porath Clinical Ethics Fellowship, UCLA ( ) American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division) Graduate Student Travel Stipend (2018)

4 Collins Award for Graduate Student Excellence, Saint Louis University Philosophy Department (2017) Saint Louis University Teaching Assistantship ( ) Saint Louis University Research Assistantship ( ) PROFESSIONAL SERVICE Graduate Affiliate with the Happiness and Well-Being Project at Saint Louis University (directed by Dan Haybron) ( ) Referee for Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (2018) (2x) Referee for 2018 Medicine and Religion Conference at Saint Louis University (2018) Webmaster for Philosophers in Jesuit Education ( ) Co-Director of Saint Louis University Philosophy Graduate Student Conference on Free Will and Moral Responsibility, keynote speakers John Heil and Pamela Hieronymi (2016) Vice-President of Saint Louis University Philosophy Graduate Student Association ( ) Session Chair at the Saint Louis University Philosophy Graduate Student Conference (2015) Assistant with the Intellectual Humility Project at Saint Louis University (directed by Eleonore Stump and John Greco) ( ) GRADUATE SEMINARS Aquinas s Virtue Ethics (Eleonore Stump) Well-Being and Moral Theory (Daniel Haybron) Twentieth Century Normative Ethics (Julia Driver and Eric Brown) Contemporary Ethics (Gregory Beabout) Aristotle s Ethics (Gregory Beabout) MacIntyre (Gregory Beabout) Kant s Moral and Political Theory (William Charron) Skepticism (John Greco) Social Epistemology (John Greco) Virtue Epistemology (John Greco) The Thomistic Synthesis (Eleonore Stump) Atonement (Eleonore Stump) Plato and Contemporary Metaphysics (Scott Berman) Aristotle s Metaphysics (Eric Brown and Scott Berman)

5 Locke and Hume on Power and Responsibility (Scott Ragland) Advanced Logic (Joe Salerno) Philosophy of Language (audited) (Joe Salerno) Philosophical Bioethics (audited) (Jeffrey Bishop) REFERENCES Eleonore Stump, Ph.D. Jeffrey Bishop, M.D., Ph.D. Robert J. Henle Professor of Philosophy Tenet Endowed Chair in Health Care Ethics Saint Louis University Professor of Philosophy Saint Louis University Daniel Haybron, Ph.D. Mark Murphy, Ph.D. Professor of Philosophy Professor of Philosophy Saint Louis University Georgetown University PROFESSIONAL ORGANIZATIONS American Philosophical Association American Society for Bioethics and Humanities American Catholic Philosophical Association Society of Christian Philosophers Philosophers in Jesuit Education DISSERTATION ABSTRACT Title: Made for Each Other: A Second-Person Approach to Well-Being and Natural Law-Virtue Ethics Committee: Eleonore Stump (supervisor), Jeffrey Bishop, Daniel Haybron, Mark Murphy A long-running approach in ethics is to ground well-being and morality in human nature. One popular account of welfare is perfectionism, which holds that what is good for human beings is nature-fulfillment or flourishing. In the domain of moral theory, natural law ethics and eudaimonistic virtue ethics have at their foundation a perfectionist account of the human good. These three theories come in a variety of forms, but the most prominent versions are Aristotelian in nature and affirm the equal prudential value of the human capacities and basic human goods. I develop a new approach to perfectionism and natural law-virtue ethics that prioritizes the social aspect of human nature and human flourishing. My approach is rooted in the thought of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. On my account, the social capacity of human nature and the

6 good of relationships are the most important for well-being and have greater prudential value than the other human powers and basic goods. In contrast to the standard views that focus on the intrinsic properties of human nature and make the rational or intellectual capacity the most important human feature, my ethics is grounded in a second-personal account of human nature according to which the most important fact about us is that we are built for second-person relations with others. The primacy of relationships for well-being is matched by a primacy of relationships for morality. In my moral theory, which combines elements of natural law theory and virtue ethics, love and care play a prominent role. In Chapter 1, I set the stage and provide an overview of my project. In Chapter 2, I take as one of my starting points an attractive contemporary perfectionist theory of well-being: Richard Kraut s developmentalism. Kraut defends an objectivist view on which welfare is a matter of flourishing the development and exercise of the physical, cognitive, emotional, and social powers. After highlighting the strengths of Kraut s account, I argue that it has several serious weaknesses. The main problem is Kraut s equal weight thesis: all of the human capacities have equal prudential value and contribute equally to well-being, and none is more important than any of the others when it comes to determining an individual s flourishing. I argue at length that this position is implausible. In Chapter 3, I examine the most popular contemporary natural law theory that of John Finnis. Natural law ethics has at its heart a list of basic human goods, which are the fundamental intrinsic values and the constituents of human well-being. Finnis s list of basic goods includes life, knowledge, work and play, aesthetic experience, friendship, practical reasonableness, and religion. As in the previous chapter, I point out some appealing features of Finnis s theory and some significant problems with it. In Finnis s case, the central flaw is the incommensurability thesis, which holds that no basic good is more important or more valuable than any other. This implies that all of these goods have equal prudential value and welfare weight: all basic goods contribute equally to well-being. I argue that we should reject this kind of incommensurability. In Chapter 4, I defend my own perfectionist theory of well-being. Whereas Kraut s developmentalism and Finnis s natural law theory are often thought of as distinct theories of welfare, I combine the two by affirming the correspondence thesis: each human capacity corresponds to some basic good, and vice versa (e.g., developing one s cognitive powers by learning something new is equivalent to achieving the good of knowledge). On my view, human flourishing consists in the development and exercise of the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional human powers, which is equivalent to the achievement of the basic goods of life and health, knowledge, work and play, relationships, and the appreciation of beauty. The most important difference between my account and those of Kraut and Finnis is that I reject the equal weight thesis and the incommensurability thesis. I distinguish between incommensurability and incomparability, and then argue for prudential value comparability and the primacy of relationships thesis: the social capacity of human nature and the basic good of relationships make the largest contribution to an individual s well-being and have the greatest prudential value. To support my view, I defend a second-personal account of human nature that focuses on the social powers rather than the cognitive powers of human beings. I draw heavily upon empirical evidence from developmental psychology, social cognition, evolutionary biology, and neuroscience to show that human beings are radically social creatures who are made for secondperson connection; our nature is a nature for someone else, and this relational feature of human nature, not its intrinsic properties, is primary. Then I present a series of theoretical and intuitive arguments for the primacy of relationships thesis. In one part of this section, I appeal to empirical

7 data from the science of well-being to show that studies of psychological and subjective wellbeing provide a wealth of evidence for the crucial importance of relationships. In Chapter 5, I build a moral theory on the foundation of my account of well-being. Although natural law theory and virtue ethics usually are seen as rival moral theories, I explain why they can and should be combined. My Augustinian-Thomistic approach fuses elements of natural law ethics in both its classical and newer versions and eudaimonistic virtue ethics. In contrast to the conceptual structure of Finnis s theory, which is foundationalist, principle-based, and grounded in self-evident practical truths, I present a new conceptual model for moral theory that is holistic and places equal emphasis on moral obligations, rights, and virtues. I also formulate a natural law criterion of moral rightness that is distinct from consequentialist, deontological, and agent-based standards of act-evaluation. To complement the primacy of relationships for well-being, I defend the primacy of relationships for morality. I argue that both natural law and virtue are fundamentally second-personal in nature. I also defend an ethics of love that makes love the supreme obligation, the greatest virtue, and the heart of the moral life. In Chapter 6, I argue that my account has the resources to overcome all of the problems facing Kraut and Finnis s views that I discussed in earlier chapters. The most important weakness of both views is the failure to recognize the primacy of relationships for well-being, which stems from a mistaken conception of human nature. This error leads to a very problematic implication, which is that disabled individuals are incapable of robust flourishing: disability straightforwardly inhibits well-being and is bad for people, and that s all there is to the story. But, as I argue at length, this view is implausible. I draw upon real-world examples and recent work in the philosophy of disability to show that many disabled individuals can and do experience robust flourishing. Whereas Kraut and Finnis s theories are inconsistent with this phenomenon, my view accommodates it and provides an explanation for it in terms of secondperson goods. The reason why many disabled individuals flourish is that relationships count the most toward flourishing, so relational well-being can make up for any ill-being brought on by disability. Persons who are impaired with respect to some human capacity can still experience the most crucial kind of social thriving, which is enough to make their lives go well for them on the whole, despite and sometimes because of their disabilities. Thus, the issue of disability serves to illustrate my central point about the primacy of relationships for well-being, and is one reason to think that my account is a more promising version of perfectionism.