Anne Jeffrey
about
about me
I am an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Affiliate Professor of Medical Humanities at Baylor University. I also serve as a research scholar and professor in the Ethics Thread for Baylor College of Medicine.
Most of my research looks at questions about improvement- how individuals, relationships, and political institutions can become better. I'm also interested in the kinds of excellences and resources we have to face adversity, but which currently or historically go overlooked because of social facts about with whom or where those excellences and resources are often found (see my recent projects on love of enemy, for example).
My forthcoming monograph, Being and Becoming Good: On the Diversity of Human Goodness and Virtue (Oxford University Press) develops and defends an inclusive, pluralist version of Aristotelian naturalism and virtue theory. 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 first book, God and Morality (Cambridge University Press) is available online and for order in print here.
With Dr. Sarah Schnitker and Dr. Kate Sweeny, I am a Primary Investigator on a five-year, $4.7 million project, Patience in Adversity project (funded by the Templeton Religion Trust). From 2023 to 2025 I served as Primary Investigator on a grant project exploring the nature of patience, Testing Patience (funded by the Templeton Religion Trust). From 2023 through 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.
"The promise of using this theory and method... is held in the prospect of cultivating a habit of attention whereby we come to see the very many ways that people all around us, including we ourselves, are both being and becoming good."
from Being and Becoming Good:
On the Diversity of Human Goodness and Virtue
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
Georgetown University
Contemporary Ethics: Engaged Learning
Philanthropy and the Public Good
Aristotelian Naturalism (graduate)
Virtue Theory (graduate)
Contemporary Moral Issues: Bioethics
Saint Louis University
South Alabama
Bioethics Thread - College of Medicine (M1- M3)
advising
Baylor has outstanding graduate students, and I have the distinct privilege of directing some of their dissertations. I have also supervised some fantastic postdoctoral researchers. Check out their work!
I am the faculty advisor for the Baylor Ethics Society, which fields our Ethics Bowl and Bioethics Bowl teams.
Baylor hosted the 2024 National Bioethics Bowl and our team placed 6th overall!
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
monographs
Being and Becoming Good: On the Diversity of Human Goodness and Virtue. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. (forthcoming)
God and Morality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. (2019)
articles
1. Jeffrey, A. (forthcoming). Anscombe, anarchism, and authority. Ergo.
2. Nelson, J., Jeffrey, A. , & Schnitker, S. (in press). Mino-Bimaadiziwin and the pursuit of harmony. Personality and Social Psychology Review.
3. Jeffrey, A. (in press). Love of enemy and self-alienation. Res Philosophica.
4. Jeffrey, A. & Maglio, K. (accepted). A Kantian Approach to Objective Morality and God’s Existence. Religions.
5. Jeffrey, A.. (2025). The grounds of moral obligations in Aquinas’s metaethics. Studies in Christian Ethics.
6. Nelson, J., Ferguson, M., Jeffrey, A., & Schnitker, S. (2025). Learning from Anishinaabe principles of relationality, process, and reciprocity to expand the reach of positive psychology and address loneliness. International Journal of Applied Positive Psychology, 10(1), 25–50.
7. Jeffrey, A., & Pawl, T. (2025). The virtue of patience. Philosophy Compass, 20(3), e70025.
8. Mehari, K. R., Blanton, M. A., Stevens, L. T., Fletcher, A. C., & Jeffrey, A., (2025). Conceptualization and measurement of hope including Black youth: A mixed methods study. Journal of Research on Adolescence. Advance online publication.
9. Marple, C., Jeffrey, A., & Schnitker, S. (2024). Reappraisal as a means to self-transcendence: Aquinas’s model of emotion regulation informs the extended process model. Philosophical Psychology, 1–28.
10. Jeffrey, A., & Ward, T. (2024). One goodness, many goodness, and the divine ideas imitation theory. Religious Studies, 1–13.
11. Jeffrey, A., & Mehari, K. (2023). The primacy of hope in human flourishing. The Monist, 106(1), 12–24.
12. Mehari, K., Jeffrey, A., Schnitker, S., & Chastang, M. (2023). Transdisciplinary participatory action research: How philosophers, psychologists, and practitioners can work (well) together to promote adolescent character development in context. Journal of Positive Psychology, 19(5), 869–880.
13. Mehari, K., Jeffrey, A., Currier, J., Chastang, M., Blanton, M., & Currier, J. (2023). Impact of a participatory action approach to virtue promotion among early adolescents. Journal of Positive Psychology, 19(5), 758–771.
14. Ratchford, J., Pawl, T., Jeffrey, A., & Schnitker, S. (2023). What is virtue? Journal of Positive Psychology. Advance online publication.
15. Jeffrey, A. (2023). The argument from good friendship to character realism. Journal of Ethics. Advance online publication.
16. Wilson, D., Ng, V., Alonso, N., Jeffrey, A., & Tay, L. (2023). Conceptualizing “positive attributes” across psychological perspectives. Journal of Personality. Advance online publication.
17. Jeffrey, A. (2022). Hoping for normative realism. Erkenntnis, 87, 1–15.
18. Jeffrey, A., & Mehari, K. (2022). Surprising empirical directions for Thomistic moral psychology. American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.
19. Jeffrey, A., & Beary, A. (2022). Against reductivist character realism. Philosophical Psychology.
20. Jeffrey, A. (2022). The divine friendship theory of moral motivation. Faith and Philosophy, 39(3), 366–387.
21. Jeffrey, A. (2021). Is the atonement necessary or fitting? Religious Studies, 57(1), 148–156.
22. Jeffrey, A. (2021). Varieties of theism and moral explanation. European Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 13, 25–50.
23. Jeffrey, A., Lancaster, A., & Moravec, M. (2020). Fluctuating maximal God. International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 88, 231–247.
24. Jeffrey, A. (2019). A Thomistic account of conscience and guilt. In B. Cokelet & C. Maley (Eds.), The moral psychology of guilt. Rowman & Littlefield.
25. Jeffrey, A. (2019). Hope in Christianity. In T. Stahl & C. Blosser (Eds.), The moral psychology of hope. Rowman & Littlefield.
26. Jeffrey, A. (2018). Limited epistocracy and political inclusion. Episteme, 15, 412–432. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2017.23
27. Jeffrey, A. (2017). How Aristotelians can make faith a virtue. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 20, 393–409.
28. Jeffrey, A. (2017). Does hope morally vindicate faith? International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, 81, 193–211.
Invited Contributions
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Jeffrey, A. (in press). Supernatural and Natural Goodness. In eds. John Hare and David Baggett, The Moral Argument. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Jeffrey, A. and Mehari (in press). Patience, Power, and Emotion Regulation, in Patience, eds. Matthew Pianalto, Sarah Schnitker, and Nancy Snow. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Jeffrey, A. and McCoy, A. (submitted) Anscombe on Per Se Revealed Moral Truth. Anscombe and the Christian Tradition, ed. Marshall Bierson, Catholic University of America Press.
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Jeffrey, A. (in press) Patience. In Improving Character, ed. Robert Hartman. Wiley Blackwell.
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Wainwright, W., (2023). Morality and Religion. In . Ed. Christian Miller. Bloomsbury Publishing.
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Jeffrey, A. (2020). Aristotle. In S. Goetz & C. Taliaferro (Eds.), Wiley-Blackwell encyclopedia of philosophy of religion. Wiley-Blackwell.
Works in Progress and Under Review (titles changed if under review)
Jeffrey, A. Loving Your Enemy in a Deteriorating Democracy.
Jeffrey, A. On Virtues and the Balance of Reasons.
Jeffrey, A. Enduring Evils from Others: Patience and Love of Enemy.
Jeffrey, A. Patience, Pathos, and Prophecy.
Jeffrey, A. Moral Patients and Prophets.
Stevens, T., Jeffrey, A., Currier, J., Chastang, M., Mehari, K. Sources of Meaning for Adolescents.
Jeffrey, A. The Inclusivist Account of Moral Worth.
Jeffrey, A. What Does It Mean to Love Your Enemy?
Ridder, R., Witvliet, C., Jeffrey, A Schnitker, S. Preliminary Evidence for a Limited Unity of Some Virtues.
Jeffrey, A. Bounds, E., Weedman, M., Schnitker, S. (preregistered, OSF) Improving Peer Relationships and Virtues.
Bounds, E., Jeffrey, A., Melton, K., Glanzer, P., Schnitker, S. (preregistered, OSF) The dark sides of courage and patience: when doing bravely and waiting patiently hurts.
Bounds, E., Jeffrey, A., Stahl, D., Melton, K., Glanzer, P., Schnitker, S. Premed College Students Virtue Development.
Bounds, E., Jeffrey, A., Weedman, M., Schnitker, S. (preregistered, OSF) Virtue and Belonging.
contact
Department of Philosophy, One Bear Place #97273, Baylor University
Waco TX 76798 | anne_jeffrey@baylor.edu