Professor Driver received her Ph.D. in Philosophy from The Johns Hopkins University. Her research interests are in Ethical Theory, particularly Consequentialism and Virtue Ethics. She has received an NEH Fellowship for 2004-2005 for work on a book entitled The Greatest Happiness Principle (now titled Consequentialism). She is a past recipient of a Laurence S. Rockefeller Fellowship from Princeton University and a Young Scholar's Award from Cornell University's Program on Ethics and Public Life. She has published articles in journals such as The Journal of Philosophy, The Philosophical Quarterly, Nous, The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, Philosophy, Philosophical Studies, and Ethics. Her book Uneasy Virtue is published by Cambridge University Press (2001). She also has a recent text, Ethics: the Fundamentals, published by Blackwell (2006). Her current research focuses on objective consequentialism as well as moral sentimentalism.
Courses 2007-08:
Fall term:
Philosophy 37: Ethical Theory
In Philosophy 37 we will be looking at three of the dominant theories of moral evaluation: Virtue Ethics, Kantian Ethics, and Utilitarianism. We will focus on how each account models practical deliberation as well as provides an account of moral evaluation. We will be reading a bit of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, Rosalind Hursthouse's On Virtue Ethics, selections of both Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill in The Classical Utilitarians: Bentham and Mill, and selected readings from Stephen Darwall's anthology Deontology.
Philosophy 80: Hume's Moral Psychology
This seminar focuses on Hume's development of a moral psychology in A Treatise of Human Nature. Hume famously maintained that morality was based on sentiment, not 'reason alone.' We will examine this claim, and compare Hume's account to that of moral rationalists such as Kant.
We will also be reading James Baillie's
Hume on Morality.
Winter term:
Philosophy 8: Introduction to Moral Philosophy
This course provides an overview of the
main approaches to moral philosophy including Utiitarianism, Kantian
Ethics, Virtue Ethics, and Social Contract theory. In addition
to studying the theories, we also look at applications to problems
and issues such as abortion, euthanasia, punishment, and charity.