Sumner B. Twiss, Ph. D.

Distinguished Professor of Human Rights, Ethics, and Religion

Sumner B. Twiss (Ph.D., Yale University, 1974) is Distinguished Professor of Human Rights, Ethics, and Religion, involving a joint appointment between the Department of Religion and the Center for the Advancement of Human Rights.

Prior to joining the FSU faculty in 2002, he was Professor of Religious Studies at Brown University, where he is now Professor Emeritus.  He is currently co-editor of the Journal of Religious Ethics (Blackwell Publishing) and senior editor of the book series Advancing Human Rights (Georgetown University Press).

He is the author or co-editor of seven books:  Comparative Religious Ethics: A New Method (Harper & Row, 1978); Genetic Counseling: Facts, Values and Norms (Alan R. Liss, 1979); Experience of the Sacred: Readings in the Phenomenology of Religion (Brown University/University Press of New England, 1992); Religion and Human Rights (Project on Religion and Human Rights, 1994); Religious Diversity and American Religious History: Studies in Traditions and Cultures (University of Georgia Press, 1997); Explorations in Global Ethics: Comparative Religious Ethics and Interreligious Dialogue (Westview Press/Perseus Books, 2000); and Politics and Religion in France and the United States (Lexington Books/Rowman & Littlefield, 2007).

He has published over forty articles in major journals and anthologies on comparative ethics, philosophy of religion, biomedical ethics, and intercultural human rights.  His most recent published articles have included: “History, Human Rights, and Globalization” (2004); “Comparison in Religious Ethics” (2005); “Comparative Ethics, a Common Morality, and Human Rights” (2005); “Theology, Tolerance, and Two Declarations of Human Rights: An Interrogative Comparison” (2007); “Torture, Justification, and Human Rights: Toward an Absolute Proscription” (2007); “Confucian Ethics, Concept-Clusters, and Human Rights” (2008); “Confucianism and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: A Historical and Philosophical Perspective” (in press); and “Confucianism and Human Rights” (in press).  He is currently working on a volume on Human Rights As Comparative Ethics.

In 2001-2003, he co-directed a faculty seminar on Reading Crimes Against Humanity in the Humanities, and his recent courses have included Human Rights and Globalization (undergraduate); Crimes Against Humanity: Analytical Perspectives (graduate), Crimes Against Humanity: Fiction, History, and Autobiography (undergraduate), International Health, Human Rights, and Bioethics (graduate), Comparative Ethics and Human Rights (graduate), Human Rights and Crimes Against Humanity: A Multidisciplinary Approach (undergraduate), War Crimes Tribunals (graduate; cross-listed with the Law School), Explaining Moral Evil (graduate), Comparative Religious Ethics: Theory and Method (graduate),  and Torture: History, Ethics, and Public Policy (graduate).

Over the course of his career, he has received a number of awards including: Post-Doctoral Fellow of the Society for Values in Higher Education; Fellow of the Institute for Society, Ethics, and the Life Sciences (The Hastings Center); National Endowment for the Humanities Award to co-direct a Summer Seminar for College Teachers; and a Chiang Ching-Kuo Foundation Award for International Scholarly Exchange.