Meghan Sullivan

Meghan Sullivan is the Wilsey Family College Professor of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. She serves as director of the University-wide Ethics Initiative and is the founding director of the Institute for Ethics and the Common Good. The University’s hub for research and teaching in ethics, the Institute includes the new Rev. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C, Center for Virtue Ethics, the Notre Dame–IBM Technology Ethics Lab. Directing a $63M research portfolio to transform how we teach and practice ethics in the 21st century, Sullivan is leading two major global networks, fueling a new era of scholarship focused on the love ethic and human flourishing, while pioneering critical frameworks for the role of faith in AI ethics. Sullivan’s books include Time Biases, and The Good Life Method, co-authored with Paul Blaschko. She has received a Joyce Award for Teaching, the Provost’s All-Faculty Team Award, and South Bend’s 40 Under 40 Award. She holds degrees from the University of Virginia, Oxford, and Rutgers, and studied at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar.

Philosophy, theology, higher education, Legos, the midwest

We are wired for love; mere human dignity is the only reason to love another person; and love is the very foundation of the rest of ethics.

I had the chance to speak at TEDNext in 2025 and it transformed my view about what it means for philosophy to serve the common good!