Bio
Dr. Michael D. Burroughs is Director of the Kegley Institute of Ethics and Associate Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Bakersfield. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from the University of Memphis and, before moving to CSU Bakersfield, held an academic and leadership appointment at UNC Chapel Hill Parr Center for Ethics and served as Assistant Director of the Rock Ethics Institute and Senior Lecturer of Philosophy at Penn State University.
Dr. Burroughs’s research interests include philosophy of education (with a focus on experiential, moral, and the intersection of science and ethics education), philosophy of childhood, and ethics. He has published on implementing philosophy in pre-college education and engaging children as philosophers, with forthcoming papers on topics in the history of ethics and political philosophy. Dr. Burroughs is also co-authoring a comprehensive philosophy for children textbook that can be used by K-12 teachers to introduce philosophy to their students.
In addition to his theoretical interests, Dr. Burroughs has worked extensively in philosophy outreach. Prior to joining the Rock Ethics Institute, he developed philosophy programs at high schools in Salisbury, MD and Belize, Central America. He also led philosophy discussion groups for two years at Eastern Correctional Institution in Princess Anne, MD.
As a graduate student at the University of Memphis, Dr. Burroughs co-founded ‘Philosophical Horizons’, a community outreach program dedicated to introducing the history and practice of philosophy to children in Memphis City Schools, grades K-12. Dr.Burroughs also served as Outreach Coordinator for the Department of Philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (Outreach).
Selected Publications
Philosophy in Education: Questioning and Dialogue in Schools (co-authored with Dr. Jana Mohr Lone). Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2016.
“Dialogue and Ethics in the Classroom,” Teaching Ethics: Instructional Models, Methods, and Modalities for University Studies, ed. Daniel W. Wueste (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2021), 25-38.
“Supporting Public Philosophy: Two Lives and Three Strategies,” Public Philosophy Journal 3, no. 2 (2020).
“Navigating the Penumbra: Children and Moral Responsibility,” Southern Journal of Philosophy 58, no. 1 (March 2020): 77-101.
“How to Survive a Crisis: Reclaiming Philosophy as a Public Practice,” Palgrave Communications 4, (Fall 2018): online.
“Learning to Listen: Epistemic Injustice and the Child” (co-authored with Dr. Deborah Tollefsen), Episteme: Journal of Individual and Social Epistemology 13, no. 3 (September 2016): 359-377.
“Practicing Philosophy: Philosophy with Children and Experiential Learning,” Experiential Learning in Philosophy, eds. Julinna Oxley and Ramona Ilea (New York: Routledge Press, 2015), 21-36.
“Reconsidering the Examined Life: Philosophy and Children,” Negotiating Childhoods, eds. Lucy Hopkins, Mark MacLeod, and Wendy C. Turgeon (Oxford, UK: Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2010), 191-200.