Michael Slote, Past Present and Future
Geoffrey Firman

Professor Michael Slote has been a powerful force in the Philosophy Department since he arrived in the mid-1980s. Not only is he one of the most distinguished philosophers among the faculty, but he has served as Chair of the Department for most of the 17 years he has been with us.

According to Professor Slote, being the head of the department does take a lot of time away from one's work as a philosopher - so much so that some find it disastrous. That is clearly not the case for him. He has published five books during his time as Chair, in addition to many articles:

• Common-Sense Morality and Consequentialism (Routledge, 1985).
• Beyond Optimizing (Harvard, 1989).
• From Morality to Virtue (Oxford, 1992).
• Three Methods of Ethics: A Debate, with Marcia Baron and Philip Pettit, (Blackwell, 1998).

Another has been published in recent months - Morals from Motives (Oxford, 2000). This builds on his work in the field of Virtue Ethics, claiming we should also look to the moral sentimentalists Hume and Hutcheson. However, as Professor Slote himself points out, we will never know how much else he might have produced had he not had the responsibilities of running the department.

Michael Slote arrived in College Park in December 1984, and by January 1985 he was Chair of the Department. He continued in that role until 2000 with the exception of a break in 1990-92 when Keith Campbell took over. This means he has been chair for 11 years - one more than the university officially allows. In that time one thing that has not changed, Slote says, is the number of outstanding faculty in the department. The faculty has always been comprised of talented people he has been proud to have as colleagues, and it continues that way.

One of the changes he has seen, and indeed played a role in, is the department's relationship with the administration of the university. The goodwill of the administration is clearly necessary for any department to flourish; yet when Professor Slote arrived, there was a great deal of tension between the department and the administration. Over his time as chair, this tension was resolved, and now the department is highly regarded by the university as a whole.

Professor Slote believes the department should take advantage of this good working relationship with the university to consolidate and strengthen its position. He recognizes that the department is in good hands for this continuing growth, with Professor Ray Martin serving as acting chair for this interim year before Professor Peter Carruthers took over as new Chair of the Department in the 2001-02 academic year.

So what will the versatile Professor Slote be doing with all the new time on his hands? Continuing his work in Virtue Ethics. He was been awarded with the University's sought-after General Research Board grants, relieving him of his teaching duties for a semester and is now in the final stages of writing yet another book.

Unfortunately for the Department and the University, however, after the fall of 2001, Professor Slote takes up a teaching post at the University of Miami. His colleagues would agree that Miami's gain is very much Maryland's loss. Samuel Kerstein, who co-taught a course with Slote during the fall of 2001 says "One thing I'll miss is Michael's energy and intellectual openness. He has a remarkable willinginess to consider new ideas and try new things."

Fred Suppe, Professor Emeritus and long-time head of CHPS, is equally warm: " Not only was Michael an effective Chair, he is a first-rate philosopher and an astute judge of philosophical ability and performance. He also became a dear friend."