jump to contentsacramento state - leadership begins here  
sac state homeadmissionsabout sac stategiving a giftsite indexcontact us
site link 1 | site link 2 | site link 4 | site link 5 | site link 6 | site link 7 | site link 8 | site link 9 | site link 10
Russell DiSilvestro

Curriculum Vitae

Ethics Center Website

Philosophy Department Website

College of Arts and Letters Website

Russell DiSilvestro

Recent Courses | Recent Publications | Research Interests | Recent Papers Presented

Contact Information
Title: Associate Professor, Director of Center for Practical and Professional Ethics
Office
Hours:

Spring 2013: Tues, Thurs, noon - 1 and by appointment
E-mail: rdisilv@csus.edu
Office
Phone:		 (916) 278-6766

Mailing
Address:

Mendocino Hall 3030
Sacramento State
6000 J Street
Sacramento, CA 95819-6033

Recent Courses

Some items below have further links to follow. Please see my curriculum vitae on the left for a more complete list.

  • Ethics and Social Issues (PHIL 101)
  • History of Ethics (PHIL 112)
  • Philosophy of Law (PHIL 155)
  • Political Philosophy (PHIL 122)
  • Recent Ethical Theory (PHIL 152)

Recent Publications

Some items below have further links to follow. Please see my curriculum vitae on the left for a more complete list.

Book

  • Human Capacities and Moral Status. Springer's Philosophy and Medicine book series, July 2010.
    Reviewed by Matthew Carey Jordan in American Journal of Bioethics 12:2 (February 2012), pp. 49-50. (a subscription to AJOB is required to read past the first page)
    Reviewed by Jason T. Eberl in National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 11:3 (Autumn 2011), pp. 596-8. (a subscription to NCBQ is required to view their contents)

Articles

  • "The Ghost in the Machine is the Elephant in the Room: Souls, Death, and Harm at the End of Life," Journal of Medicine and Philosophy (forthcoming in 2012).
  • "Three Christian Arguments Against Germline Engineering," Christian Bioethics 18:2 (August 2012).
  • "Capacities, Hierarchies, and the Moral Status of Normal Human Infants," Journal of Value Inquiry 43 (December 2009), pp. 479-492.
  • “Reproductive Autonomy, the Non-Identity Problem, and the Non-Person Problem.” Bioethics 23:1 (January 2009), pp. 59-67.
  • “A Qualified Endorsement of Embryonic Stem-Cell Research, Based on Two Widely Shared Beliefs about the Brain-Diseased Patients Such Research Might Benefit.”  Journal of Medical Ethics 34 (July 2008), pp. 563-567.
  • “Not Every Cell is Sacred: A Reply to Charo.”  Bioethics 20:3 (June 2006), pp. 146-157.
  • “Human Embryos in the Original Position?” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 30:3 (June 2005), pp. 285-304.
  • “A Neglected Solution to the Problem of the Metaphysical and Moral Status of the Human-Animal Chimera.”  Ethics & Medicine 20:2 (Summer 2004), pp. 5-23.

Open Peer Commentaries

  • "The Two Essence Problem That Wasn't," American Journal of Bioethics 12:9 (September 2012), pp. 34-35.
  • "What Does Not Budge For Any Nudge?" American Journal of Bioethics 12:2 (February 2012), pp. 14-15.
  • "The Parthenotes and the Parthenon," American Journal of Bioethics 11:3 (March 2011), pp. 35-36.
  • “Small-r-Republicans, Big-R-Republicans, and Government Bioethics Councils,” American Journal of Bioethics 9:2 (February 2009), pp. 57-58.
  • “Precisely Which Claim Makes Spontaneous Abortion a Scourge?” American Journal of Bioethics 8:7 (July 2008), pp. 31-33.
  • “What’s Wrong with Deliberately Proselytizing Patients?”  American Journal of Bioethics 7:7 (July 2007), pp. 22-24.

back to top

Research Interests

  • I work on the intersection between metaphysics and ethics, especially as it relates to contemporary bioethical issues involving the nature and moral status of human beings.
  • I am currently researching how the capabilities approach to social justice applies to reproductive health and reproductive autonomy.

back to top

Recent Papers Presented

Some items below have further links to follow. Please see my curriculum vitae on the left for a more complete list.

  • "Say You're Sorry: How to Apologize and Mean It," for the 2011 Nammour Symposium, California State University-Sacramento, Sacramento, California, April 27, 2011. (A videolink is near the bottom of the symposium link here.)

  • "The Ghost in the Machine is the Elephant in the Room: Souls, Death, and Harm at the End of Life," for the Spring 2010 Philosophy Department Colloquium Series at Washington State University, Pullman, Washington, April 5, 2010.
  • "How to Love Your Neighbors and Enemies While Speaking Out Against Them In Public," for the College of Arts and Letters Symposium, "After Prop 8: A Symposium On How Communities Deal With Controversy Over Polarizing Issues," California State University-Sacramento, Sacramento, California, October 26, 2009. (A videolink is near the top of the symposium link here.)
  • “Liberalism and Women’s Adaptive Preferences: A Reply to Lisa Schwartzmann,” for the 2007 Pacific Division Meeting of the American Philosophical Association, San Francisco, California, April 7, 2007.

back to top

Last updated: 02/13/2013