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Mavis Biss, Ph.D.

Associate Professor
Mavis Biss

Personal Profile

Education

  • Ph.D., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2011
  • M.A., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2008
  • B.A., Swarthmore College, 2002

Select Publications

  • “On Trying Too Hard: A Kantian Interpretation of Misguided Moral Striving,” Journal of Philosophy of Education vol. 55, no. 6, pp. 966-976, 2021.

  • "A Kantian Response to the Problem of Reception," Social Theory and Practice, Online First: Jan. 5, 2019. DOI: 10.5840/soctheorpract 2019.
  • “Friendship, Trust and Moral Self-Perfection,” Philosophers’ Imprint vol. 19, no. 50, pp. 1-16, 2019
  • “Positive Morality and the Realization of Freedom in Kant’s Moral Philosophy,” European Journal of Philosophy vol. 27 (3), pp. 610-624, Sept. 2019 [published online Dec. 2018]
  • “Avoiding Vice and Pursing Virtue: Kant on Perfect Duties and ‘Prudential Latitude’,” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 98 (4), pp. 618-635, December 2017 [published online November 2015]
  • “Radical Moral Imagination and Moral Luck,” Metaphilosophy 47 (4-5), pp. 558-570, October 2016 [reprinted in Criticism and Compassion: The Ethics and Politics of Claudia Card, Robin S. Dillon and Armen Marsoobian, ed. Wiley: 2018]
  • “Kantian Moral Striving,” Kantian Review vol. 20 (1), pp. 1-23, March 2015 [awarded the 2015 Wilfrid Sellars Essay Prize by the North American Kant Society]

Areas of Specialization

  • Ethics
  • Kant
  • Feminist Philosophy

Select Awards

  • 2023 NEH Summer Stipend
  • 2022 Harry W. Rodgers III Distinguished Teacher of the Year
  • Wilfrid Sellars Essay Prize awarded by the North American Kant Society, 2015
  • American Dissertation Fellowship from the American Association for University Women (AAUW), 2010

Public Philosophy

  • “Are Anti-vaxxers Conscientious Objectors?” The Atlantic, July 29, 2019 (with Eula Biss)
  • “Our Broken Trust in Public Space,” The New York Times (The Stone), May 28, 2018