ANNE JEFFREY
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY
AFFILIATE PROFESSOR OF MEDICAL HUMANITIES
BAYLOR UNIVERSITY
ADJUNCT ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE
about
I work primarily in metaethics and normative ethics. My current book project, Being and Becoming Good: On the Diversity of Human Goodness and Virtue, under contract with Oxford University Press, develops and defends an inclusivist Aristotelian metaethics and ethics. Other of my teaching experience and research interests lie in the history of ethics, political and legal philosophy, bioethics, Aristotle, and philosophy of religion. My book, God and Morality (Cambridge University Press) is available online and for order in print here.
From 2023 to 2025 I am Primary Investigator on a 258,000 grant on the nature of patience, Testing Patience (funded by the Templeton Religion Trust). From 2023 to 2025 I am also a co-investigator on a $2.8 million grant, Illuminating Theological Inquiry and Christian Ethics Through Training in Psychological Science (PI: Devan Stahl and Sarah Schnitker).
From 2019 to 2021 I worked with Dr. Krista Mehari (Psychology, University of South Alabama), Dr. Joseph Currier (Psychology, University of South Alabama), and Marie Chastang (United Methodist Inner City Mission) on an interdisciplinary project to develop a positive youth development intervention for adolescents in an under-resourced urban context. Learn more about our program, Empowered, here.
I joined the philosophy faculty at Baylor University in fall of 2019, became an Affiliate Professor in Medical Humanities in 2020. In 2023 I joined Baylor College of Medicine as an assistant professor and co-leader of the ethics thread with Claire Horner and Devan Stahl.
I earned my PhD in philosophy at Georgetown University, and then was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Notre Dame on the Hope and Optimism Project. In fall 2016, I joined the faculty of philosophy at the University of South Alabama where I held a joint appointment in the College of Medicine; I developed and delivered a virtue-based Bioethics curriculum for first through third year medical students.
I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. This (mostly) explains my love of the water, the Miami Heat, and Cuban food. I grew to love biology and so left Miami's beaches for college with aspirations to go into cancer research.
I started off studying biochemistry and music composition, then tried out classics and creative writing, and finally ended up in philosophy. Those early interests have made their way back into my work in bioethics and ancient philosophy, confirming my conviction that not all who wander (academically) are lost.
PhD Students & Postdocs
Baylor has outstanding graduate students, and I have the distinct privilege of directing a few of their dissertations. I have also supervised some awesome postdocs. Check out their work here:
teaching
Below is a list of courses I've taught or am teaching. I also teach the ethics thread for Baylor College of Medicine. Click on a course title to see a copy of the syllabus or course website (for current classes).
Baylor University
Contemporary Ethics: Engaged Learning Section
Philanthropy and the Public Good
Aristotelian Naturalism (graduate)
Virtue Theory (graduate)
Contemporary Moral Issues: Bioethics
South Alabama
Georgetown University
Paradoxes in Aristotle & Plato
Political and Social Thought (School of Foreign Service, discussion leader)
Philosophy of Law (discussion leader)
Intro to Philosophy (discussion leader)
Bioethics (TA)
Saint Louis University
Political Philosophy (spring '19)
Intro to Philosophy (spring '19)
Bioethics Thread - College of Medicine (M1- M3 years)
I am the faculty advisor for the Baylor Bioethics Bowl team. Baylor will host the 2024 National Bioethics Bowl from April 12-13.
As faculty advisor for the South Alabama Bioethics Club, I organized and hosted two National Bioethics Bowl competitions. In 2018, our team placed 5th at Nationals.
research
Below are publications and works in progress. I'm happy to send drafts of works in progress or under review upon request. (Titles changed for works under review)
Being and Becoming Good: On the Diversity of Human Goodness and Virtue. Oxford University Press (under contract)
God and Morality. Cambridge University Press (April 2019).
articles
Love of Enemy and Self Alienation, Res Philosophica (forthcoming)
Repurposing as a Means of Self Transcendence, (with Cassie Marple and Sarah Schnitker), Philosophical Psychology (2024)
Conceptualizing ‘Positive Attributes’ Across Psychological Perspectives (with Luis Tay, Vincent Ng, Nicole Alonso, and Danielle Wilson), Journal of Personality (2023)
The Argument from Good Friendship to Character Realism, Journal of Ethics (2023)
The Primacy of Hope in Human Flourishing (with Krista Mehari), The Monist (2023)
Impact of a Participatory Action Approach to Virtue Promotion Among Early Adolescents (with Krista Mehari, Marie Chastang, Joseph Currier, and Megan Blanton), Journal of Positive Psychology (2023)
Transdisciplinary Participatory Action Research: How Philosophers, Psychologists, and Practitioners Can Work (Well) Together to Promote Adolescent Character Development, (with Krista Mehari, Marie Chastang, and Sarah Schnitker), Journal of Positive Psychology (2023).
The Divine Friendship Theory of Moral Motivation, Faith and Philosophy (forthcoming)
What Is Virtue? (with Sarah Schnitker, Juliette Ratchford, and Tim Pawl), Philosophical Psychology (2023)
Supernatural and Natural Goodness, The Moral Argument, ed. John Hare and David Baggett . Oxford: Oxford University Press (forthcoming)
Surprising Empirical Directions for Thomistic Moral Psychology, (with Krista Mehari), American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (2022)
Against Reductivist Character Realism (with Alina Beary), Philosophical Psychology (2022)
How Aristotelians Can Make Faith a Virtue, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2016):1-17
Does Hope Morally Vindicate Faith? International Journal of Philosophy of Religion (2017): 1-19
Limited Epistocracy and Political Inclusion, Episteme (2018):1-21
Is the Atonement Necessary or Fitting? Religious Studies (2019):1-9
Hoping for Metanormative Realism. Erkenntnis (2019):1-15
Aristotle, Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Philosophy of Religion, eds. Stewart Goetz and Charles Taliaferro (2020).
Fluctuating Maximal God, (with A. Lancaster-Thomas and M. Moravec) International Journal for Philosophy of Religion (2020).
Varieties of Theism and Explanations of Moral Realism, European Journal of Philosophy of Religion (2021): 25-50.
Conscience, in Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, eds. Tim Crane and Elinor Mason (under contract).
projects in progress (titles changed if under review)
metaethics
Divine Ideas, Goodness, and Goodnesses (under revision) with Tom Ward
Theistic Ethics Workshop, 7/10/20, Princeton Rutgers Philosophy of Religion colloquium, March 2021
More Relative Goodness (under review)
Pacific APA, 4/922, ACPA 10/22
Growing Up and Acting for the Right Reasons (under review)
Virtual Metaethics Colloquium, April 2021.
Focal Meaning & Practical Reasons (email for draft)
Women in Philosophy in the Chicago Area Workshop, Northwestern University, 12/1/16
How to Get Realistic About Moral Reasons without Losing Your Mind Dependence (email for draft)
RoME, University of Colorado--Boulder, 8/18; South Carolina Philosophical Association meeting, College of Charleston, 2/24/12
Rethinking Moral Objectivity (email for draft)
Atlantic Regional Philosophical Association Meeting, 10/5/14
normative ethics and moral psychology
Enduring Evils from Others (email for draft)
APA Eastern, 1/17
The Virtue of Patience with Tim Pawl (email for draft)
Inclusivizing Aristotle’s Theory of Virtue with Alexandra Romanyshyn and Hilary Yancey (in progress)
Baylor Flourishing Brown Bag, 9/21
How to Love Your Enemy (in progress)
Notre Dame Workshop on Love, Virtue, and Forgiveness, 5/22, Society for Christian Philosophers Midwest Meeting, 10/22
Hope As a Norm of Tough Love (email for draft)
Normative Hope and Didactic Blame with Colin Hickey (email for draft)
Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, August 10, 2017; Moral Failure and Recovery Workshop, June 2017; The Nature and Norms of Hope Conference, Cornell University, April 2017
political philosophy & applied ethics
A Qualitative Study of Adolescent Perceptions of Risks and Benefits in Research on GPS-Enabled mHealth Apps with Stacy Ryan Pettes, Kathryn Magnuson, and Emily Armstrong (in revision)
The Political Value of Patience (in progress)
Loving Your Enemies in a Deteriorating Democracy (email for draft)
MANCEPT, University of Manchester, 9/8/2022, Political Philosophy and Religion Workshop, 12/2/2022
Combatting the Opioid Crisis: A Shared Responsibility Account (email for draft)
Opioids and Ethics Conference, University of South Alabama, 11/18, November 11/17
Solving the Priority Problem for the Capabilities Approach (email for draft)
Human Development and Capabilities Association meeting, Athens, GE, 9/3/14
Anscombe on Epistemic and Practical Authority (under revision)
University College Dublin, 3/11
philosophy of religion
Divine Love and Omnirationality (email for draft)
Alabama Philosophical Society, 9/17
Divine Love of Enemy (in progress)
ancient and medieval philosophy
Aristotle on Friendship and Loving the Good Haplos (in progress)
Errors of Reason in De Anima iii.3
Canadian Colloquium for Ancient Philosophy, University of British Columbia, 5/4/14)
The Grounds of Moral Obligations in Aquinas's Natural Law Ethics (email for draft)
Notre Dame Moral Theology Colloquium, invited 2/17/16
public philosophy
Interdisciplining Theology with Devan Stahl, Sarah Schnitker, and Natalie Carnes, Currents in Religion (summer 2023)
Questions in Philosophy of Religion BYU student panel (spring 2022)
Must God Explain Morality? Tipsy Orthodoxy (spring 2022)
God and Morality Christian Scholars Review Blog (summer 2021)
Does God Explain Morality? The Analytic Christian (spring 2021)
God and Moral Motivation The Analytic Christian (fall 2021)
Building Community and Engaging Students Remotely Baylor Connections (spring 2020)
Dangerous Despair, Logoi (Spring 2016)
The Role of Faith in Being Reasonable, Patheos (Summer 2017)
If God Does Not Exist, Why Be a Moral Person? Capturing Christianity podcast (Spring 2019)
contact
Department of Philosophy, One Bear Place #97273, Baylor University
Waco TX 76798 | anne_jeffrey@baylor.edu