Faculty and Staff
Full-time Faculty and Staff
Professor Robert Baker
B.A. with honors, City College of New York; Ph.D., University of Minnesota
Bob Baker's main areas of research are ethics, medical ethics, and the history of medical ethics. His most recent book is The American Medical Ethics Revolution (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000). He is also the Director of the Center for Bioethics and Clinical Leadership. He is a restless soul who loves to walk, to travel, to meet new people and to try new cuisines.
bakerr@union.edu / 388-6215 / Humanities 020
Associate Professor Felmon Davis
B.A. cum laude, Haverford College; Ph.D., Princeton University
Felmon Davis's research centers on moral theory, metaphysics and philosophy of mind, with particular focus on some contemporary treatments of the problem of the objectivity of moral belief and principle, e.g. in "discourse ethics" and analytical meta-ethics. In the end, his question is, what does it make sense for anyone to believe about right and wrong? There are intriguing connections too to recent work in the philosophy of religion (rationality of religious belief).
davisf@union.edu / 388-6205 / Humanities 215A
Research Professor John Kekes
B.A. (First Class Honors) Queen's University, Ph.D Australian National University
John Kekes works mostly in ethics and political philosophy. He is the author of 19 books, including The Examined Life (Penn State University Press, 1988), The Morality of Pluralism (Princeton University Press, 1996), Moral Wisdom and Good Lives (Cornell University Press, 1997), The Roots of Evil (Cornell University Press, 2007), Enjoyment (Oxford University Press, 2009), and The Human Condition (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2010) and of over 150 articles.
kekesj@union.edu /388-6376/ Humanities 215A
Research Professor Raymond Martin
Ph.D., University of Rochester
Ray Martin taught at the University of Maryland for many years before coming to Union College in 2002. The author and editor of several books, his research has been primarily in the areas of personal identity theory and the philosophy of history. His current project is a history of personal identity theory, to be entitled The Rise and Fall of Soul and Self. A notorious workaholic, he also enjoys traveling, the arts, hiking, movies, and golf.
martinr@union.edu
Personal home page: http://idol.union.edu/~martinr
Professor Linda E. Patrik
B. A. cum laude, Carleton College; Ph.D., Northwestern University
In her research, Linda Patrik works on Buddhist philosophy and also on digital text scholarship. Recent grants include an ACLS Contemplative Practices Fellowship and an ASIANetwork Student-Faculty Research Grant. Many of her philosophy courses are interdisciplinary courses, cross-listed with Asian Studies and Religious Studies. At Union for over three decades, she was involved in the early development of the Women Studies Program and the Religious Studies Program.
patrikl@union.edu / 388-6240 / Room 202, 36 Union Avenue
Assistant Professor Lisa Warenski
Assistant Professor Lisa Warenski
B.A. cum laude, Wellesley College; Ph.D. with Honors, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Lisa Warenski works primarily in epistemology, but she also has interests in metaphysics, philosophy of science, and philosophy of logic. A former dancer and choreographer, she counterbalances her philosophical life with a variety of dance and movement classes. She also enjoys the arts, travel, New York City, and when time permits, cooking.
warenskl@union.edu / 388-6214 / Humanities 216A
Personal home page: http://minerva.union.edu/warenskl
Visiting Assistant Professor Mark Wunderlich
B.A cum laude, Harvard; Ph.D., University of Arizona
Mark Wunderlich works mostly in epistemology and connections between epistemology and ethics. He was once a competitive debater, and he is looking forward to coaching the Ethics Bowl team. He takes guilty pleasure in tinkering with computers; he also enjoys exercise, Gilbert and Sullivan, and movies (from the Marx Brothers to Sergio Leone).
wunderlm@union.edu/ 388-6376 / Humanities 216B
Professor Leo Zaibert,
Department Chair
J.D. Universidad Santa Maria, Venezuela; Ph.D., SUNY Buffalo
Leo Zaibert's research interests are in the philosophy of law, ethics, and political philosophy. He has published widely in these areas. Above all, he is interested in our responses to wrongdoing; and among these possible responses he has focused upon punishment and forgiveness. He previously held posts at the Simon Bolivar University (in Venezuela), the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, and at Amherst College, and he has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.
388-7185/Humanities 215D
E-mail: zaibertl@union.edu
Personal Home Page: http://minerva.union.edu/zaibertl
Mrs. Marianne Snowden (Administrative Assistant)
Marianne Snowden is the Administrative Assistant for both the Philosophy and Classics Departments, where she has worked since coming to the College twenty years ago. She is an unparalleled source of departmental history and advice. Outside the office she is the mother of two, and spends a lot of time on soccer fields and training the newly-acquired family pet, a Brittany Spaniel named Abby.
snowdenm@union.edu / 388-6376 / Humanities 215
Additional Faculty
Visiting Instructor Chalmers Clark
B. S. magna cum laude, honors in philosophy, Union College; M.A., Ph.D. The Graduate Center of the City University of New York.
Chalmers C. Clark, PhD, is Adjunct Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Union and Adjunct Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Neiswanger
Bioethics Institute of Loyola University, Chicago. His background is in naturalized epistemology and biomedical ethics. Chalmers received his PhD from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY), and has been Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Ethics of the American Medical Association; Donaghue Visiting Scholar in Biomedical and Behavioral Research Ethics, at the Bioethics Center of Yale University, and Visiting Fellow at the Center for Philosophy and History of Science at Boston University. His interest is to extend epistemological holism into the domain of moral and political thought. The result has been research and publication in several interdisciplinary forms. Current work centers on trust relations in the professions (medicine especially), the professions as stewards of public trusts, and the role public trusts play in the basic structure of a free society. After class, Chalmers practices (not plays) the violin, runs (slowly), and looks for short cuts to logic problems.
Humanities 215
Professor William Vitek
B.A., Union College; Ph.D. with Honors, The Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Bill Vitek teaches Environmental Ethics and Environmental Literature at Union. He is the author of one book Promising, and with Wes Jackson co-editor of The Virtues of Ignorance: Sustainability, Complexity and the Limits of Knowledge and Rooted in the Land: Essays on Community and Place. He is also a jazz pianist and composer with three recordings devoted to children's music.
vitek@clarkson.edu / 388-6376 / Humanities 215