Christopher Toner is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Saint Thomas, and an associate editor of the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly.
Prior to coming to Saint Thomas in 2008, he was Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics at the Air Command and Staff College and Distinguished Visiting Professor of Philosophy at the United States Air Force Academy; he also served six years as an Army officer. Dr. Toner did his graduate work at the University of Notre Dame, receiving his doctorate in 2003.
His research interests include Virtue Ethics, Ancient and Medieval Philosophy (especially Aristotle and Aquinas), and Military Ethics. He has published numerous articles on just war theory, the relationship between virtue and well-being, the self-centeredness objection to virtue ethics, the unity of the virtues, and Jane Austen on virtues as home-makers. He is currently working on a book tentatively entitled, Virtue, Home, and Happiness. Dr. Toner, his wife Ruth, and their four children live in the Apple Valley, Minnesota.
Associate Editor, American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly (ACPQ)
Academic History
PhD, Notre Dame 2003
Areas of Specialization
Moral Theory
Medieval
Military Ethics
Previous Academic Position
Associate Professor of Leadership and Ethics, Air Command and Staff College
Honors
Distinguished Visiting Professor, USAF Academy, 2007-2008
"The Logical Structure of Just War Theory," The Journal of Ethics, June 2010.
"Virtue Ethics and the Nature and Forms of Egoism, Journal of Philosophical Research, 2010.
"Sorts of Naturalism - Requirements for a Successful Theory," Metaphilosophy, April 2008.
"Catastrophe and Eucatastrophe - Russell and Tolkien on the True Form of Fiction," New Blackfriars, January 2008.
"Just Cause and Proper Authority in the Just War Tradition - from Salamanca to Königsberg . . . and Back?" The Modern Schoolman, November 2007.
"Was Aquinas an Egoist?" The Thomist, October 2007.
"Military Service as a Practice - Integrating the Sword and Shield Approaches to Military Ethics,"Journal of Military Ethics, November 2006.
"The Self-Centredness Objection to Virtue Ethics," Philosophy, October 2006.
"Aristotelian Well-Being - A Response to L.W. Sumner's Critique," Utilitas, September 2006.
"Pascal's First Wager Reconsidered - A Virtue Theoretic View," (with Patrick Toner), International Philosophical Quarterly, March 2006.
"Victoria's Integral Realism - Proportionality, Totality, and the Realism/Liberalism Dichotomy" inTeaching, Faith and Service - The Foundations of Freedom, The University of Portland Press, 2006.
"Just War and the Supreme Emergency Exemption," The Philosophical Quarterly, October 2005.
"Angelic Sin in Aquinas and Scotus and the Genesis of Some Central Objections to Contemporary Virtue Ethics," The Thomist, January 2005.
"Just War and Graduated Discrimination," the American Catholic Philosophical Quarterly, Fall 2004.
"Akrasia Revisited - An Interpretation and Defense of Aristotle," The Southern Journal of Philosophy, Summer 2003.
"Maritain and MacIntyre on Moral Education" in Jacques Maritain and the Many Ways of Knowing, The Catholic University of America Press, 2002.