• Philosophy and Public Policy, Environmental Ethics, American Philosophy, Ethics, Social and Political Philosophy

Jim Sheppard is an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Missouri – Kansas City. Jim’s research and teaching centers on the relationship between philosophy and public policy (emphasis on urban environmental policy), on early American philosophy (emphasis on the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson and John Dewey) and on social and political philosophy (emphasis on the continuing influence and significance of modern liberalism, particularly in the works of John Stuart Mill, Isaiah Berlin, and John Rawls).

Jim has published several papers on subjects ranging from Frank Lloyd Wright’s architecture and the significance of rain gardens in Kansas City to the ethics of urban sustainability/environmentalism and the work of the environmental philosopher Holmes Rolston. His book Rethinking Cities (Indiana University Press) is due out in 2010. It will be the first comprehensive philosophical treatment of urban environmentalism. He is also working on a book with John Herron (Professor of History at UMKC) titled Heartland Green: An Environmental History of Kansas City (University of Pittsburgh Press), also due out in 2010. It will be the first such history of Kansas City.

In addition, Jim’s other projects include a book on communitarianism, a book on the Appalachian Trail, and a book on the philosophy of the mundane.

Along with serving on several boards and participating in various think-tanks in Kansas City for organizations and institutions ranging from the Kansas City Police Department and the Jackson County Department of Corrections to Bridging the Gap, the Urban League and The Environmental Protection Agency, Jim also served as a city commissioner in Kansas City, MO on the environmental management commission and the mayor’s commission on race under the administration of Mayor Kay Barnes.