
After completing his B.A. in philosophy at the University of Akron, Joel MacClellan was a United States Peace Corps Volunteer in Panama working in environmental education and sustainable development. He completed his doctorate in philosophy at the University of Tennessee. Joel was a scholar-in-residence at Wesleyan University in 2013 as the New York University Animal Studies Initiative’s Animal Ethics and Public Policy Fellow. He held visiting assistant professorships at Washington State University and Binghamton University, SUNY, before coming to Loyola. His main areas of research are applied ethics, especially environmental ethics, and the philosophy of science.
Recent Publications
- “Another Dam Controversy: The Case of the Cuyahoga from World’s Most Toxic River to EPA Posterchild”, Interdisciplinary Environmental Ethics in the Midwest, Ian Smith and Matthew Ferkany (eds.), Michigan State University Press, forthcoming early 2022.
- “More Ethics Than Politics, More Animals Than Species,” Humanimalia 8(1), 2016.
- “Agricultural Technology and Welfare Footprints”, in Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, David M. Kaplan and Paul B. Thompson (eds.), New York: Springer, 2014.
- “How (Not) to Defend a Rawlsian Approach to Intergenerational Ethics”, Ethics & the Environment 18(1): 67-85, 2013. “What the Wild Things Are: A Critique of Clare Palmer’s ‘What (If Anything) Do We Owe Wild Animals?’,” Between the Species 16(1), 2013.
- “Size Matters: Animal Size, Contributory Causation, and Ethical Vegetarianism”, Journal of Animal Ethics 3(1): 57-68, 2013.
- “Agricultural Technology and Welfare Footprints”, in Encyclopedia of Food and Agricultural Ethics, David M. Kaplan and Paul B. Thompson (eds.), New York: Springer, 2014.
- “How (Not) to Defend a Rawlsian Approach to Intergenerational Ethics”, Ethics & the Environment 18(1): 67-85, 2013.
- “What the Wild Things Are: A Critique of Clare Palmer’s ‘What (If Anything) Do We Owe Wild Animals?’,” Between the Species 16(1), 2013.
- “Size Matters: Animal Size, Contributory Causation, and Ethical Vegetarianism”, Journal of Animal Ethics 3(1): 57-68, 2013.
- “A Defense of Axiological Extensionism”, Mark Alfino (ed.), Ethical Diets and Animal Ethics — Beyond Extensionism, Springer, International Library of Environmental, Agricultural and Food Ethics.
Degrees
Ph.D., University of Tennessee
Classes Taught
Philosophy of the Human Person
Ethics
Making Moral Decisions
Medical Ethics
Environmental Ethics
Environmental Philosophy
Philosophy of Science
History of Modern Philosophy
Senior Seminar: Animal Rights Theory
Honors Seminars: Food Ethics, Bioethics for the Long Haul, Philosophy of Biology, Sustainability & Intergenerational Justice
Areas of Expertise
Applied Ethics
Philosophy of Science