Joan McGregor

Joan McGregor’s current research interests are focused on a number of questions in moral and legal philosophy.

 McGregor has been working on a project entitled Reclaiming Moral Capital, which evaluates the problems caused by the loss of shared norms, such as norms of civility that make pluralistic democracies flourish. That project is focused on universities being institutions where virtues can be cultivated, particularly the civic and epistemic virtues. McGregor received funding for this project from the National Institute for Civil Discourse, the Center for the Study of Religious and Conflict, and the Mercatus Center program entitled Pluralism and Civil Exchange. Those projects resulted in the successful collaborative multi-year grant project funded through the Wake Forest University Character Initiative: "Cultivating Civic, Moral, and Epistemic Virtues Among Undergraduates in Arizona’s Public Universities" 

Bioethics and environmental ethics join in research on the moral issues in sustainability. One of the most pressing sustainability questions pertains to modern food systems. Contemporary food systems are complex and multinational, involving workers and consumers from diverse cultures and economies. These systems must be capable of feeding large culturally varied populations without compromising social justice, human health, and the health of the planet.  These questions are multifaceted and require approaches and methods from a variety of disciplines. 
 

Furthermore, McGregor was PI on three NEH Summer Institutes with faculty from around the country, taught over 20 workshops with judges on ethics and the law, and ran two year-long workshops with faculty integrating ethics across the curriculum. She is 
also doing research on the virtue of ecological humility and its role in solving the climate crisis.
 

McGregor directed three National Endowment for the Humanities summer institutes on sustainability, “Fierce Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and the Foundations of the Land Ethic” in 2009 and in 2011, “Beyond the Land Ethics: Sustainability and Humanities”, "Extending the Land Ethic."