Deborah Mower
Director of the Center for Practical Ethics, Professor of Philosophy, Mr and Mrs Bryant Lectureship in Ethics
I am the Director of The Center for Practical Ethics and a faculty member in the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies.
Research Interests
I am fascinated by questions about how people mature morally and the educational methods that develop skills of civil discourse, moral sensitivity, and intellectual virtues such as civility, humility, and curiosity.
Biography
Deborah S. Mower is the Founding Director of The Center for Practical Ethics and the Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Hume Bryant Associate Professor of Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and Religion at the University of Mississippi. She received her B.A. in Philosophy from Pacific University, and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin—Madison. She specializes in moral psychology, applied ethics and public policy, and moral education. She joined the University of Mississippi in 2016 and founded the UM Ethics Bowl team, which won the 2019 Mid-Atlantic Regional Championship. She coordinates the Dialogue Initiative at the University of Mississippi, and is the Chair for General Education Ethical Reasoning and Ethical Responsibility. She is the recent past President of the Society for Ethics Across the Curriculum (SEAC), a current member of the Board of Directors for the Philosophy of Learning and Teaching Organization (PLATO), a current Board member of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics (APPE), and a member of the Research Network for the National Institute for Civil Discourse (NICD). In addition to multiple published articles on applied ethics and moral education, she published two co-edited volumes [Civility in Politics and Education (2012) and Developing Moral Sensitivity (2015)] and co-directed a 2016 National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on Moral Psychology and Education.
Moderating Conviction Through Civility in Education
The Real Morality of Public Discourse: Civility as an Orienting Attitude
Increasing the Moral Sensitivity of Professionals
Scripting Situations in Moral Education
Courses Taught
- PHIL 102 Introduction to Professional Ethics
- PHIL 352 Care Ethics
- PHIL 652 Problems in Care Ethics
- PHIL 344 Moral Psychology
- PHIL 644 Studies in Moral Psychology
- PHIL 353 Consequentialism
- PHIL 653 Problems in Consequentialism
Education
Ph.D. Philosophy, University of Wisconsin-Madison (2003)