Professor of Philosophy

Distinguished Professor of Liberal Arts and Education

My scholarly interests are in moral philosophy, moral psychology, moral education, race theory, multiculturalism, social and political philosophy, philosophy of education, the philosophy of Simone Weil, and, more recently, philosophy and the Holocaust, and ethics and race in film. I have taught at UMass/Boston since 1973, and have been a visiting professor at UCLA (in Philosophy), Stanford (in Education), and Teachers College, Columbia (in Education).

I have written four books: Friendship, Altruism, and Morality (Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980); A Truer Liberty: Simone Weil and Marxism (co-author: V.J. Seidler) (Routledge, 1989); Moral Perception and Particularity (Cambridge UP, 1994); “I’m Not a Racist, But”: The Moral Quandary of Race (Cornell UP, 2002) (which was selected Best Book of the year in social philosophy by the North American Society for Social Philosophy).

Most of my teaching is in Philosophy, where my courses are Moral and Social Problems; Philosophy, Race, and Multiculturalism; Philosophy and the Holocaust; Egoism and Altruism; and Race and Racism. I also teach a course in Education and the Critical and Creative Thinking Program, Issues and Controversies in Antiracist and Multicultural Education. I am very interested in race and K-12 education and on four occasions taught a course on race and racism to a racially mixed class of seniors at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School (which my three children attended), and have written and published on this class.

I am married to the historian and film scholar, Judy Smith, who also teaches at UMass/Boston, in American Studies.

About

College: Liberal Arts

Department: Philosophy

Office: Rm 12, Wheatley Hall, 5th floor

Phone: 617-287-6532

Email: lawrence.blum@umb.edu

Hours: on sabbatical 2007-08