Meet Marcus Arvan
Assistant Professor, Philosophy
Education: 1998 Tufts University, B.A.
2008 University of Arizona, Ph.D.
View CV
Courses Taught:
Introduction to Philosophy
Ethics
Biomedical Ethics
Business Ethics
Social-Political Philosophy
Theories of Justice
International Justice
Human Rights
The Morality of War
Ancient Philosophy
Career Specialties: Marcus Arvan specializes in Ethics, Political Philosophy,
Human Rights, and Free Will.
His doctorate dissertation,
A Nonideal Theory of
Justice
, constructed a comprehensive theory of how to respond to political
and economic injustices.
His recently
published article, “A New Theory of Free Will,” showed that a wide variety of
philosophical problems and laws of quantum physics can be explained if the
universe is understood as a peer-to-peer networked computer simulation. Arvan is also in the process of writing his first book, “Reconstructing the
Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals,” a book which will explain in simple
and easy-to-understand terms why morality is objective, and why people should
behave morally even when immoral behavior appears to them to be in their
self-interest.
Professional and Community Activities:
Arvan has published peer-reviewed articles in The Philosophical Forum, Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy,
Journal of Global Ethics, Neuroethics, Klesis, Journal of Cognition and
Neuroethics, and Southwest Philosophical
Review. His research on personality
traits and moral judgments received national media coverage on foxnews.com and
The Michael Medved Show. Arvan also
coaches two debate teams at UT, which compete annually in the Intercollegiate
Ethics Bowl and Bioethics Bowl. His
2012-2013 Ethics Bowl team qualified for and competed in the National Finals in
San Antonio, TX. Arvan has also
co-organized two annual Human Rights Day student-faculty conferences at UT, and
is the creator and moderator of The Philosophers’
Cocoon, a safe-and-supportive online forum for early career philosophers
which currently has more than 40 national and international contributors.
Honors and Awards: