Interdisciplinary and General Ethics Fellowships at Stanford

For 2024-25, the McCoy Family Center for Ethics in Society at Stanford seeks to appoint up to four postdoctoral fellows across the two programs described below. Selected fellows will be designated as either General Ethics Fellows or Interdisciplinary Ethics Fellows. The two types of fellows have some distinct training opportunities and responsibilities, but they form a common community at the Center and participate together in the Center’s intellectual life. All applicants will be considered for both types of fellowships and do not need to tailor their application for one or the other fellowship.

Applicants for these positions must have normative training and hold a Ph.D. in Philosophy or Political Science. Scholars with a Ph.D. in Law will also be considered so long as their work focuses on ethical dimensions of public policy or law.

General Ethics Fellowship

This longstanding postdoctoral program is open to candidates with substantial normative research in any area within Philosophy or Political Science. Given the Center's mission to bring ethical reflection to bear on important social issues, we are particularly interested in candidates whose work bears on serious problems affecting people's lives now. General Ethics Fellows participate in the intellectual life of the Center (attend weekly workshops, Center events, and professional training opportunities), teach one class per year, interact with undergraduates in the Ethics in Society Program, and contribute to an interdisciplinary ethics community across the campus.

Interdisciplinary Ethics Fellowship

This program is also rooted in the commitment of the Ethics Center to bringing ethical reflection to bear on pressing social problems. Addressing many of these social problems involves knowledge of the work of the social sciences, law, engineering, and the life sciences. The premise of this program is that the normative scholarship of our fellows will be enhanced by engagement with empirically oriented scholars. To that end, each fellow in the program will be matched with a partner research center at Stanford that is dedicated to interdisciplinary research. For 2024-25, we are especially interested in candidates with research interests in environmental ethics, global justice, biomedical ethics, philosophy of technology, and ethics of artificial intelligence, but all applicants whose work may intersect with empirically-oriented scholarship will be considered. Applicants need not name a possible partner center on campus or tailor their materials for this type of fellowship. The Interdisciplinary Ethics Fellows and partner centers will be selected based on the natural match between their work. Fellows will regularly participate in the intellectual life of the partner center and the Ethics Center (e.g., attend weekly workshops, Center events, and professional training opportunities), teach one class per year, interact with undergraduates in the Ethics in Society Program, and contribute to an interdisciplinary ethics community across the campus.

For information about the application process for the Embedded Ethics Fellowship, click here.

Appointment Requirements and Application Details

Candidates for both types of fellowships must have normative training and hold a Ph.D. in Philosophy or Political Science. Scholars with a Ph.D. in Law will also be considered so long as their work focuses on ethical dimensions of public policy or law. Applicants must complete all requirements for their Ph.D. no later than June 30, 2024. Candidates must also be no more than three years from the awarding of their degree at the start of the fellowship (i.e., September 2021). The term of the fellowship is September 1, 2024 - August 31, 2025, and is renewable for a second year. We welcome applications from individuals with a broad range of life experiences, perspectives, and backgrounds who would contribute to our community of scholars. The expected salary is $75,000. Applicants should submit a cover letter, CV, a writing sample (no more than 25 pages double-spaced), three letters of recommendation, a one-page research statement (single-spaced), and a list of classes that they have taught and/or are prepared to teach.

Applications are due by December 8, 2023. 

For questions not answered on the FAQ page, please email ethics_submissions@stanford.edu.