University of Arkansas at Little Rock

Office: Stabler Hall, Room 307
Phone: 501-569-3109
Email: aseshleman@ualr.edu

Introduction

I am a first generation college student who never dreamed he would be where he is now when he was in college. In college I encountered philosophy but never thought of it as connected in any way to a career for myself. After college, marriage, and several years working in the “real world,” I found myself reading more and more philosophy and thinking that I would regret it if I didn’t give graduate school a try. I convinced my wife to follow me to California so that I could study with one of my favorite philosophers. There we added a dog and a son to our clan, and I was made to think harder than I ever thought possible! We moved here in 1998 after I finished my degrees. When I’m not working or being a husband/dad, I might be listening to music, playing soccer, or pushing dirt around in my garden.

“And is it complicated? Well, it is complicated a bit; but life and truth and things tend to be complicated. It’s not things, it’s philosophers that are simple. You will have heard it said, I expect, that oversimplification is the occupational disease of philosophers, and in a way one might agree with that. But for the sneaking suspicion that it’s their occupation.” -J.L. Austin

Teaching Interests

As my educational background attests, I’ve always had an interest in both philosophy and religion, so I feel especially fortunate to be part of a department where I can teach both. The courses I frequently teach include: Religious Worldviews, Philosophy of Religion, Eastern Thought, Ethics and Society, Reasoning Across the Disciplines, Medical Ethics, and Modern Philosophy.

Areas of Specialization: Moral Philosophy (Ethics, Free Will, and Moral Responsibility), Philosophy of Religion.

Areas of Competence: Applied Ethics, Religion and Ethics, Eastern Philosophy, Metaphysics, History of Modern Philosophy.

Research Interests

My primary area of research interest is in examining the conditions under which we judge it reasonable to hold persons responsible for their actions and character. One of the interesting things about this area is the increasing awareness of the ways in which it involves consideration of issues in ethics in conjunction with issues associated with the traditional debates about the nature of human freedom. My second main area of research interest is to reexamine issues in philosophy of religion from the perspective of non-theistic religious traditions (e.g., Advaita Vedanta and Buddhism) that have been, up until now, explored almost exclusively in the context of theistic religions.

Selected Professional Activities

• Readings in Philosophy of Religion: East Meets West (editor), forthcoming, Blackwell Publishing.
• “Responsibility for Character,” forthcoming in Philosophical Topics.
• Review of God and Realism by Peter Byrne, Religious Studies, 41:3 (September, 2005): 347-352.
• “Can an Atheist Believe in God?” Religious Studies, 41:2 (June, 2005): 183-199.
• “Natural Human Rights: A Fifth Wheel?” a reply to Sander Lee’s “Rights, Morality, and Faith in the Light of the Holocaust,” at the American Philosophical Association, Pacific Meeting, San Francisco, CA, March 2005.
• “Accountability and Then Some,” a reply to Stephen Darwall’s “Moral Obligation and Accountability,” at the conference, “Agency and Values,” University of California, Riverside, February, 2005.
• “Being is Not Believing: Fischer and Ravizza on Taking Responsibility,” The Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 79:4 (December 2001): 479-490.
• “Moral Responsibility,” an on-line entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, (January 2001, updated August 2004).
• Review of Moral Appraisability: Puzzles, Proposals, and Perplexities by Ishtiyaque Haji, Ethics, 111: 1 (October, 2000): 167-170.
• “Blameworthiness and Wrongness,” The Midsouth Philosophy Conference, Memphis University, March 2000.
• Review of Arguing for Atheism by Robin Le Poidevin, Faith and Philosophy, 16: 2 (April, 1999): 272-276.
• “Identification and Responsibility for Character,” The 20th World Congress of Philosophy, Boston, August 1998.
• “Alternative Possibilities and the Free Will Defense,” Religious Studies, 33:3 (September, 1997): 267-286.
• “Nagarjuna and the Evaluation of Religious Worldviews,” Philosophy of Religion Colloquium, Claremont Graduate University, March 1992.

Educational Background

Ph.D., Philosophy 1998
University of California, Riverside

M.A., Religion 1992
Claremont Graduate University

M.A., Philosophy 1991
Claremont Graduate University