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Simon Cushing

Current Vitae

Present Position

  • Associate Professor of Philosophy
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    Educational Background

  • University of Southern California: Ph.D. in Philosophy, August 1999.
         Dissertation: Citizenship, Political Obligation, and the "Right-Based" Social Contract Tradition
  • St. Anne’s College, Oxford University, U.K.: B.A. in Politics, Philosophy and Economics (PPE), July 1989
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    Areas of Specialization

  • Social and Political Philosophy
  • Moral Philosophy and Applied Ethics
  • Philosophy of Social Science
  • The Lyrics of Billy Bragg, Neil Young and Elvis Costello
  • The Films of Jackie Chan
  • Punch Cartoonists of the ’70s and ’80s
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    Areas of Competence

  • History of Philosophy, Ancient
  • History of Philosophy, Modern
  • Philosophy of Mind
  • Logic and Critical Thinking
  • Mid-to-Late ’80s alternative music
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    Works in Progress

  • “Evil, Freedom and the Heaven Dilemma”
  • “How to know if you’re transsexual”
  • Chapter on Sexuality
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    Publications

  • “Don’t Fear the Reaper: An Epicurean Answer to Puzzles About Death and Injustice,” Layers of Dying and Death (Inter-Disciplinary Press, ISBN 978-1-904710-39-5), ed. Kate Woodthorpe
  • “Justification, Legitimacy and Social Embeddedness: Locke and Rawls on Society and the State,” Journal of Value Inquiry, Vol. 37, No. 2 (2003)
  • “Against ‘Humanism’: Speciesism, Personhood and Preference,” Journal of Social Philosophy, Vol. 34, No. 4 (Winter 2003)
  • “Liberal Nationalism, Culture and Justice,” Social Philosophy Today, Vol. 18
  • “Rawls and Duty-Based Accounts of Political Obligations,” APA Newsletter on Law and Philosophy, Fall 1999
  • “Representation and Obligation in Rawls’s Social Contract Theory,” Southwest Philosophy Review, Vol. 14, No. 1 (January 1998)
  • “Agreement in Social Contract Theories: Locke vs. Rawls,” in Technology, Morality and Social Policy (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997), ed. Yeager Hudson
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    Teaching Experience

  • Adjunct at Hendrix College, Conway, AR (Spring 1999)
  • Adjunct/Assistant Professor at the University of Central Arkansas (Fall 1996-Spring 1999)
  • Adjunct at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville (Fall 1997)
  • Lecturer at Otis College, Los Angeles (Fall 1995-Summer 1996)
  • Teaching Assistant at the University of Southern California (Fall 1989-Spring 1996)
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    Presentations

  • 11th Global Conference: Perspectives in Evil and Human Wickedness, Salzburg, Austria, March 2010: “Evil, Freedom, and the Heaven Dilemma”
  • Central APA Meeting, Chicago, IL, February 20th, 2010: “Reply to Navin on Luck, Democracy, and Distributive Justice“
  • Philosophy Department Colloquium, Oakland University, Rochester, MI, November 18th, 2009: “Don’t Fear The Reaper” (expanded version)
  • Interdisciplinary Conference: “Immortality, Physicalism, and Death of God,” University of Alaska, Anchorage, June 2008: “The Heaven Dilemma for the Free Will Defense Against the Problem of Evil”
  • 1st Global Conference: Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging, Mansfield College, Oxford, September 2007: “Reaching For My Gun: Why We Shouldn’t Hear the Word “Culture” in Normative Political Theory”
  • 23rd International Social Philosophy Conference, University of Victoria, Victoria, B.C., Canada, August 2006: “What Empathy Isn’t and Couldn’t Be”
  • 4th Global Conference, Making Sense Of Dying and Death, Mansfield College, Oxford, United Kingdom, July 2006: “Don’t Fear the Reaper: An Epicurean Answer to Puzzles About Death and Injustice”
  • Mini Conference on Global Justice at the Pacific APA, Pasadena, CA, March 2004: Reply to Moltchanova
  • Hawaii International Conference on Arts and Humanities, January 2003: “Must Liberals Be Nationalists?” (Abstract accepted, but unable to attend.)
  • Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association, Seattle, March 29th, 2002: Reply to Brock
  • 18th International Social Philosophy Conference, Eastern Michigan University, July 26-28 2001: “Against Liberal Nationalism”
  • Colloquium, University of Minnesota-Duluth, March 2001: “‘I didn't agree to that!’ The Hypothetical Contract and Political Obligation”
  • Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, Chicago, April 2000: “Speciesism, Personhood and Preference”
  • Central Division of the American Philosophical Association, New Orleans, May 1999: “Reply to Kawall”
  • Working Group on Law, Culture & the Humanities, March 12-14, Wake Forest University: “Speciesism, Personhood and Preference”
  • Arkansas Philosophical Association, ’98: “Marquis on Killing and Abortion”
  • 20th World Congress of Philosophy, Boston, August 10-16, 1998: “The Social Contract and Political Obligation: Locke vs. Rawls” [talk accepted, but unable to attend owing to birth of son]
  • Arkansas Philosophical Association, ’97: “The Social Contract and Political Obligation: Locke vs. Rawls”
  • 59th Meeting of the Southwestern Philosophical Society, October ’97: “Representation and Obligation in Rawls’s Social Contract Theory”
  • Mid-South Philosophy Conference ’97: “Does Rawls have a Social Contract theory (and does it matter if he doesn’t)?”
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    Stuff I Like