Employee Directory

Professional Title/s

Faculty Credentials

Biographical Information

Courses (SP '24)

• PHIL 230 - Science in a Cultural Setting
• PHIL 285 - Business and Management Ethics
• PHIL 310 - Global Justice

Research Fields

• Applied ethical theory, with focus on globalization, development, multinational business, international law and human rights.
• History of Philosophy: Early Modern, especially Descartes: 1580-1650; Voltaire & French Philosophy: 1730-89.
• Philosophy and History of Science: Scientific Methodology, Especially Astronomy and Physics, 1500-1650; Explanation and Physico-Theology, 1675-1750.

Current Work

• Concept of human and social development and its relation to the Capabilities approach and to United Nations Sustainable Development Goals
• Human and social development and its relation to decolonial thought
• President, International Development Ethics Association [developmentethics.org]
• Co-Editor (with Christine Koggel) of Journal of Global Ethics [https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjge20/current]
• Social-ethical consequences of excessive microlending, payday lending and mobile cash, especially in India and USA
• Rise and fall of divine teleology in scientific explanations in the 17th-18th centuries
• Cultural history of Europe, 17th-18th centuries

Past Work

• President, International Development Ethics Association (2014-2022) [developmentethics.org]
• Co-Editor (with Sirkku Hellsten and others) of Journal of Global Ethics (2013-2023)[https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjge20/current]

Recent Work

• National Endowment for Humanities Institutes, co-directed with Fred Gifford. June-July 2015: “Development Ethics and Global Justice: Gender, Economics and Environment,” July-August 2013: “Development Ethics: Questions, Challenges, Responsibilities”. Information: [https://nehphl.web2.cal.msu.edu/]

Publications

• Philpapers.org (Philosophy of science and history of philosophy) [https://philpapers.org/profile/30723]
• Social Science Research Network (Global, Development, and Business ethics) [https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=760150]
• Journal of Global Ethics Special Issue: Reconciliation, Transitional and Indigenous Justice. Krushil Watene & Eric Palmer, eds. 14:2, 2018. [https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/rjge20/14/2?nav=tocList]

Books

• Eric Palmer (ed.) Gender Justice (vol. 2) Vulnerability and Empowerment. Routledge, 2014. (Content from guest-edited issue, Journal of Global Ethics 9:3.) https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449626.2015.1021091#abstract
• Voltaire. Candide, or, All for the Best. Broadview Press, Peterborough & New York. Sept. 2009. (Editor: introduction, supplementary readings, translation)https://books.google.com/books/about/Candide.html?id=1A0WO7Od0HAC

Recent Essays

• "USA and Canada: high income maldevelopment." Handbook of Development Ethics. Jay Drydyk & Lori Keleher (eds.), New York: Routledge, 2018. [book free on Amazon Kindle]
• "What is development?" Ethics, Agency, and Democracy in Global Development. Lori Keleher & Stacy Kosko, eds. Cambridge University Press, [pre-publication copy].
• “Less Radical Enlightenment: A Christian Wing of the French Enlightenment,” in Steffen Ducheyne, ed. Reassessing the Radical Enlightenment. New York: Routledge, 2017. [pre-publication copy]
• “Introduction: the Sustainable Development Goals Forum,” Journal of Global Ethics 11:1 (April 2015) 3-9. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17449626.2015.1021091#abstract
• Essay review: “How to succeed in science while really, really trying: the central European savant in the mid-Seventeenth century.” Review of André Holenstein, Hubert Steinke & Martin Stuber, eds., Scholars in Action: The Practice of Knowledge and the Figure of the Savant in the 18^th Century, 2 vols. Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2013. HOPOS: The Journal of the International Society for the History of the Philosophy of Science 5:1 (April, 2015), 167-73. https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/680375?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents
• “The Andhra Pradesh Microfinance Crisis and American Payday Lending: Two studies in vulnerability,” Révue Ethique et Economique / Ethics and Economics, Special Issue (2012:2). https://papyrus.bib.umontreal.ca/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1866/9632/Palmer-10(2).pdf
• “The Wisdom in Wood Rot: God in Eighteenth Century Scientific Explanation,” in William H. Krieger, ed. Science at the Frontiers: Perspectives on the History and Philosophy of Science. Lexington Books, 2011. 17-34.