John J. Davenport

John Davenport studied Philosophy at Yale University and completed his PhD in Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame in 1998. Since then, he has taught in the undergraduate and graduate programs at Fordham University in New York City, where he served as Associate Chair of Philosophy and Associate Director of Environmental Studies. He has also served in various offices for the Kierkegaard Society USA—most recently as Society President (2010-2011).

John has published and taught widely on topics in free will and responsibility, existential conceptions of practical identity, virtue ethics, motivation and autonomy, theories of justice, and philosophy of religion (including divine attributes, mythology and fantasy literature). With Anthony Rudd, John co-edited the 2001 collection, Kierkegaard After MacIntyre, which defends the relevance of Kierkegaard's ideas for contemporary debates in moral psychology and virtue ethics. His book, Will as Commitment and Resolve (Fordham University Press, 2007), draws on ideas from the existential tradition to defend a conception of willing as a self-motivating resolve by which agents stick to goals in the face of difficulty, and set new ends based on recognition of values that transcend our individual happiness. This work provides the basis for a new hierarchical theory of personal autonomy that improves on Harry Frankfurt's account of caring and identity-defining commitments.

John has recently published four essays on faith and will in Kierkegaard's thought, four essays on topics in political philosophy (especially concerning human rights and the need for a global federation of democracies), and a monograph in moral psychology titled Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: from Frankfurt and MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (Routledge, 2012), which develops his earlier work on Kierkegaard and outlines his new account of autonomy. He and Anthony Rudd are currently co-editing a new collection of essays titled Love, Reason, and Will: Kierkegaard after Frankfurt (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2015).

John is currently planning three book projects in political philosophy, including:

• An argument for a league of democracies to take over the responsibility to protect core human rights and provide global public goods
• A critique of four styles of argument for political libertarianism in favor of a conception of social justice based on common goods as capital "endowments" needed to sustain productivity and well-being in human societies over time
• An argument for a constitutional convention to fix the fundamental problems with American democracy and the federal government in the 21st century.

EDUCATION

• University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, 1992-1998. PhD conferred August 8, 1998. High honors for MA level work.

• Yale University: BA May, 1989. Graduated Magna Cum Laude with Distinction in Philosophy.

• TASIS England: High School Diploma, June 1985. Graduated Valedictorian.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS: BOOKS

Love, Reason, and Will: Kierkegaard after Frankfurt co-edited with Anthony Rudd (Bloomsbury, Sept. 2015)

Narrative Identity and Autonomy: from MacIntyre to Kierkegaard (Routledge, July 2012).

Will as Commitment and Resolve: An Existential Account of Creativity, Love, Virtue, and Happiness. (Fordham University Press, June, 2007).

Kierkegaard After MacIntyre: Essays in Freedom, Narrative, and Virtue, co-edited with Anthony Rudd (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Co., 2001).