David McPherson is the Benson Center鈥檚 first sabbatical fellow and will serve as a visiting research professor during the 2021-22 academic year.
McPherson is an associate professor of philosophy at Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska. He received a PhD in philosophy in 2013 and an MA in philosophy from Marquette University, and a BA in philosophy听summa cum laude听from Bethel University.
At the Benson Center, McPherson is working on a book project titled听Spiritual Alienation and the Quest for God. This book articulates, explores and responds to the problem of spiritual alienation, which is the state of being 鈥渆stranged from human fulfillment,鈥� and which he argues is a perennial feature of the human condition but is exacerbated within the conditions of Western modernity, such as secularity.
This book project builds on his previous book monographs,听听(Cambridge University Press, 2020) and听 (Oxford University Press, 2022), and听his edited volume,听听(Cambridge University Press, 2017).
His research specializations are in ethics (especially virtue ethics), political philosophy, meaning in life, and philosophy of religion.
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