Professor Annette Merle Bryson has been teaching philosophy at John Cabot University since 2019. In addition to teaching, she serves as Assistant Dean of Student Academics. As both a faculty member and an administrator, Professor Bryson offers a unique perspective on working in an international environment like JCU.
Tell us about your background and your interests.
I was born and raised in West Africa. I have a special connection to Liberia, where I was born, and Ghana, where I spent my formative years and received part of my primary and secondary education in local schools. I have also lived in several parts of the United States and Europe. Along the way, I worked as a reporter in France and in communications for a US presidential campaign, taught humanities courses to business students at Johns Hopkins University, and worked for UNESCO in Geneva before eventually making philosophy the center of my professional life.
My life has been deeply enriched by the friendships, communities, and experiences I have found in each place I have lived. Many enduring friendships have remained an important part of my life across distance and time. I especially enjoy spending time with loved ones and friends, reading and teaching philosophy, exchanging ideas with my students, immersing myself in literature, being by the sea, and walking around Rome — the extraordinary city I am fortunate enough to call home.
What brought you to JCU?
Six months after moving to Italy with my family, I realized how deeply I missed teaching philosophy: the energy of the classroom, the relationships that develop with students, and the experience of thinking through ideas together. At JCU, I found my way back to teaching and a place where I belonged.
One of the things that makes JCU special is that, in different ways, everyone here lives across boundaries of some kind. American students are living and studying in another country; Italian students are studying within an American educational system; and students from around the world are learning within a community that is both familiar and unfamiliar. Faculty and staff inhabit that same space between cultures.
In a sense, all of us at JCU are both at home and abroad. That shared experience helps us connect across cultural and national differences, while the exchange of different perspectives challenges our assumptions and enriches our intellectual life. This combination of human connection and intellectual openness made me feel at home at JCU, and has made me want to stay.
How did you discover your passion for philosophy?
Perhaps I always had a passion for philosophy without realizing what it was. I first encountered it formally as a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, when I read Descartes, Spinoza, and Leibniz. It blew my mind. I was captivated by their questions, the thinking their arguments demanded, and the conversations they generated in the classroom.
My philosophical education took shape in several places: I studied ancient Greek philosophy at the University of Geneva, logic and time at the University of Colorado, completed my PhD in metaethics at the University of Michigan, and later became a research fellow at the University of Notre Dame.
At every stage, I was fortunate to belong to intellectual communities that took ideas seriously and helped people think more clearly. I find that kind of community at JCU, among my colleagues and through events such as the recent Workshop on Well-being, which brought philosophers from around the world to Rome for three days of presentations, commentaries, and sustained discussions. I was delighted to contribute with comments of my own.
What continues to draw me to philosophy is its combination of expansive questions and exacting methods, whether I am thinking about what makes life meaningful, what justice requires, or what time itself is. I am fortunate to spend my life reading, writing, teaching, and discussing philosophy.
What is your teaching style? What do you hope your students take away from your classes?
I know a class is working well when students stay behind to continue our conversation, when they keep discussing an idea outside class, or when they write to share a philosophical insight.
When I teach, I make it clear that we are participating together in an ongoing conversation. I serve as a guide, but we are on the same intellectual journey, and everyone has something important to contribute. JCU’s small classes allow me to get to know my students, understand what moves and interests them, and adapt my teaching to the distinct culture that develops in each classroom.
Sometimes I facilitate a conversation. Sometimes I explain a difficult argument or help keep a discussion focused and productive. Sometimes I challenge students to defend a claim. And sometimes I stand back and let them work something out for themselves. I want students to feel comfortable challenging one another and being challenged while also feeling supported, respected, and taken seriously.
I especially love guiding students toward “Aha!” moments, when something clicks. I hope they leave my classes able to think carefully about difficult questions, evaluate arguments, understand what their commitments imply, and engage productively with disagreement. Most of all, I hope they come to see themselves as inquirers with something meaningful to contribute to our shared exploration.
What are your research interests? What are you working on right now?
My current research is in metaethics, which examines the meaning and status of moral judgments and the assumptions underlying them. For instance, when we say, “Cruelty is wrong,” are we making a claim that can be true? If so, what makes it true?
We often assume that claims about the natural world are true when they are accurately responsive to natural reality. But what would make a moral claim true? Must there be a distinctly moral realm or moral properties to which our true moral claims are responsive? I am interested in how we can make sense of moral objectivity and truth without assuming this requires, say, distinctly moral properties.
My current work compares philosophers whose answers to these questions are usually presented as rivals but who may share more than what is commonly recognized. By identifying their shared commitments and clarifying what separates them, I hope to move toward a better account of moral truth and objectivity.
My broader philosophical interests include ethics, political and feminist philosophy, philosophy of mind, logic, and ancient philosophy. These interests shape the range of courses I teach, and some represent directions I hope to pursue in future research.
Tell us about your role as Assistant Dean of Student Academics in the Office of the Dean of Academic Affairs. What do you find challenging about your work? How does your background in philosophy inform the way you approach it?
I had not set out to become an administrator, but at JCU I discovered how meaningful the work could be. Because some academic administrators here also teach, I can continue teaching philosophy while serving as one of the academic deans. I’ve found that the two roles enrich one another, and both require careful thought about complex questions.
As Assistant Dean of Student Academics, I provide academic advising to assigned students and guide the broader student body on university policies, degree requirements, and academic procedures. I also oversee requests for policy-based academic accommodations, including excused absences, exam arrangements, and requests for incomplete grades. In this role, I work closely with faculty and other university offices to support students whose circumstances affect their academic progress. Much of my work involves helping resolve complicated situations that affect a student’s academic path. These situations often require more than applying a single policy: they involve listening carefully, understanding different perspectives, coordinating with faculty and colleagues across the university, and making sure everyone has a clear and shared understanding of how to move forward. I find it deeply rewarding to help bring clarity to a difficult situation and identify a solution that is both fair and workable.
What idea in ethics do you think is most widely misunderstood by people outside philosophy?
One widespread misunderstanding is that ethics is simply a matter of personal opinion, with no basis for distinguishing better from worse answers. Even philosophers who regard moral judgments as subjective can examine moral positions rigorously, asking what reasons support them, what they presuppose, and what follows from them.
A related misunderstanding is that moral objectivity requires uniformity. Shared values can be understood and embodied differently across cultures and circumstances. Living and working across cultures has made me especially interested in how values can be shared without being expressed identically.
