Clair Morrissey is a moral philosopher who specializes in practical ethics and political philosophy.
Professor Morrissey, recipient of Occidental's Linda and Tod White Teaching Prize (2017) and Donald R. Loftsgordon Award for Outstanding Teaching (2023), is a moral philosopher who specializes in practical ethics and political philosophy, with areas of interest in bioethics, environmental ethics, and aesthetics. She teaches a wide range of courses in these areas.
Her current research concerns the nature and value of "wit," and the value of scientific inquiry, focusing on how studying the natural sciences, especially ecology, inculcates in individuals reverence for the natural world. She has also recently launched a new collaboration with colleagues in the College鈥檚 Biology Department through their long-standing fieldwork research program for undergraduates at the Organization for Tropical Studies鈥 La Selva Biological Research Station in Costa Rica. (Featured here.) The new collaboration, supported by a 2017-2019 Graves Award in the Humanities, has two elements: (a) a philosophical reading and discussion group for both philosophy and ecology undergraduate researchers about environmental ethics and ecological research ethics, and (b) philosophy faculty and undergraduate researchers embedded within and assisting with ecological fieldwork.
With (Rice University), she co-edited the .
Publications:
C. Morrissey and E. Neale (2019) 鈥淣onideal theory, self-respect, and preimplantation genetic technologies,鈥 in Human Embryos and Preimplantation Technologies: Ethical, Social, and Public Policy Aspects, p. 67-74, eds. E. Scott Sills and Gianpiero D. Palermo, Elsevier.
C. Morrissey and R. L. Walker (2018) 鈥淭he Ethics of General Population Preventive Genomic Sequencing: Rights and Social Justice,鈥 Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 43: 22-43.
A. Sherman and C. Morrissey (2017) 鈥淲hat is Art Good For?: The Socio-Epistemic Value of Art,鈥 Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 11: 411.
C. Morrissey (2016) 鈥淭he Value of Dignity in and for Bioethics: Rethinking the Terms of the Debate,鈥 Theoretical Medicine and Bioethics 37(3): 173-192.
C. Morrissey and K. Palghat (2014) 鈥淓ngaging Reading,鈥 Teaching Philosophy 37(1): 37-55.
R. L. Walker and C. Morrissey (2014) 鈥淏ioethics Methods in the Ethical, Legal and Social Implications of the Human Genome Project Literature,鈥 Bioethics 28(9): 481-490.
C. Morrissey and R. L. Walker (2012) 鈥淔unding and Forums for ELSI Research: Who (or What) Is Setting the Agenda?鈥 American Journal of Bioethics Primary Research 3(3): 41-50.
R. L. Walker and C. Morrissey (2012) 鈥淐harting ELSI鈥檚 Future Course: Lessons from the Recent Past,鈥 Genetics in Medicine 14(2): 259-267.