William B Cochran

I am currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Philosophy with the Embedded EthiCS Program @ Harvard University. Prior to coming to Harvard, I was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Computer Science with the Program for Leadership and Character at Wake Forest University.

I received my Ph.D. in Philosophy from Northwestern University in 2020, specializing in Aristotle’s theory of moral education. My dissertation reconstructs Aristotle’s notion of teaching and uses it to settle debates in Aristotle’s ethics, specifically concerning the development of the virtues of character and practical wisdom, and to solve a problem for Neo-Aristotelian educational theory. In addition to maintaining my research interests in ancient philosophy, I aim to bring lessons from Aristotelian moral education to bear on the ethics of technology. How can we live well with emerging technologies? How can we best prepare tomorrow’s computer scientists to be ethical leaders in their field? These are questions that currently animate my thinking.​
 

To relax, I enjoy watching movies or biking around Cambridge with my wife and daughter. On weekends, we especially like to seek out new trails to hike in New England with our dog, Winston.

Photo credit: Meg Edison