They join a strong team of researchers and enrich our mission of advancing rigorous scholarship on freedom, responsibility, and justice. Read more about all of our faculty’s research here.

New Core Faculty

Scott Casleton

Assistant Professor of Political Economy and Moral Science

Scott Casleton (Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley) joins the University of Arizona specializing in moral and political philosophy, with a particular focus on free speech, privacy, and equality in our digital world. His research examines how classical liberal values adapt to modern technologies including social media, search engines, and internet pornography. Then, he considers the implications these topics hold for democracy and individual rights.

His most recent publication was in the Journal of the History of Philosophy titled “Grotius Contra Carneades: Natural Law and the Problem of Self-Interest” in 2025. Casleton’s work bridges historical questions with applicable and urgent modern debates, making him a key voice in understanding liberty in the 21st century.

Mariana Noé

Assistant Professor of Philosophy

Mariana Noé (Ph.D., Columbia University and Licentiate, University of Buenos Aires) specializes in Ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, ethics, and political thought. Her research investigates how human imperfection shapes our pursuit of virtue and informs ethical and political ideals. Her current book project, Plato’s Ideal and Non-Ideal Theory, explores how Plato’s The Laws balances the value of idealized models with the constraints of human nature. She seeks to understand how humans can be free agents despite the constraints of human nature. She believes that if we want a free society with effective laws, institutions, and social practices, we have to tailor it to our capabilities, limitations, and weaknesses.

Noé earned her Ph.D., M.Phil., and M.A. in classical studies from Columbia University, and a licentiate in philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires. She previously held a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard. Beyond her scholarship, she is an award-winning educator and an advocate of public philosophy in both Spanish and English, reaching broad audiences through podcasts, talks, and media collaborations.

Kit Wellman

Professor of Philosophy

Kit Wellman (Ph.D., University of Arizona) returns to the University of Arizona, joining the Freedom Center—this time as a professor. Wellman is widely recognized for his contributions to political and legal philosophy, with research spanning political legitimacy, punishment, secession, immigration, and the duty to obey the law.

He is the author or co-author of six books, including Rights Forfeiture and Punishment (2017), and has a forthcoming volume, Rights and Resistance (Oxford University Press). His current work expands the theory of rights forfeiture to illuminate when punishment or defensive force is morally justified. Prior to his return, Wellman held faculty appointments at Washington University, Georgia State University, and Guilford College.

New Postdoctoral Research Scholars

Spencer Case

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Spencer Case (Ph.D., University of Colorado Boulder) joins the Center with expertise in normativity, war ethics, moral realism, and political philosophy. His book Is Morality Real? A Debate (co-authored with Matt Lutz) engages fundamental questions about moral truth, and his current project Why It’s Ok to Be Patriotic continues his commitment to bridging academic philosophy with contemporary concerns.

Case brings international research experience as a prior fellow at Wuhan University and most recently taught at Bowling Green State University. A veteran of the U.S. Army with deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, he also hosts Micro-Digressions: A Philosophy Podcast, where he engages diverse audiences in wide-ranging philosophical conversations.

Stephanie Van Fossen

Postdoctoral Research Associate

Stephanie Van Fossen’s (Ph.D., University of Southern California) research in ethics focuses on theory development, especially moral theories that understand wrongdoing as wronging particular people rather than wronging “someone or other.” Among her interests, she is currently refining and extending her dissertation work on contractualism, and co-authoring a paper that addresses recent objections to contractualist moral theory. Beyond this, she is exploring puzzles about ethics and time—such as how our feelings and beliefs shift when harms or benefits occur in the distant past or future—as well as questions in applied ethics, including the moral foundations of reparations.

Van Fossen also applies ethical insights to current issues like reparations and the moral evaluation of historical injustices. She continues to use her work to showcase a commitment to clarifying and advancing moral theory in ways that address both timeless and urgent ethical questions.

Building on Research into Freedom’s Foundation

We are excited to welcome this talented group of faculty and scholars to the Center for the Philosophy of Freedom. Their diverse views and research strengthen the pursuit of our mission to explore freedom in all its dimensions and forms.