Katherine Sweet

Research Fellow

Project: “Living Well Together: The Intellectual and Relational Components of Human Flourishing”

Dr. Katherine Sweet’s project aims to defend an account of human flourishing compatible with the “unique human function” requirements found in Aristotelian virtue theory. If the good life for a human person depends on her activating her uniquely human capacities, then unintuitively, some human beings may not be able to flourish, given certain impairments to those capacities. The main question is, what are the capacities required for humans to flourish, such that human flourishing is possible even in cases of cognitive impairment or physical disability? Dr. Sweet aims to answer this question by explicating the nature of interpersonal relationships, including their intellectual constitution.

Bio: Dr. Sweet holds a Ph.D. in philosophy from Saint Louis University. She is a former dissertation fellow on the Theology, Science, and Knowledge Project funded by the John Templeton Foundation and University of Missouri – St. Louis. She works on questions in social epistemology, ethics, and philosophy of religion.