Biography
A religious ethicist specializing in economic, environmental, and health care ethics, Dr. Craig’s most recent book examines the health care reform debate in the United States. Based on interviews with religious hospital administrators and interfaith activists, Health Care as a Social Good: Religious Values and American Democracy (Georgetown University Press, 2014), assesses health care access, delivery and finance in this country. Dr. Craig met with conservatives, liberals, and moderates, reviewing their ideas for market reform or support for the Affordable Care Act. He discovered that health care in the US is not a private good or a public good. Decades of public policy and philanthropic service have made health care a shared social good.
Dr. Craig is also the author of John Ruskin and the Ethics of Consumption (University of Virginia Press, 2006). He has published in leading scholarly journals, including Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics, Soundings, Journal of Religious Ethics, and Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal. In 2008-2010, he was the faculty leader of IUPUI’s inaugural Common Theme, which featured author Bill McKibben (Deep Economy) as keynote speaker.
Education
B.A. Oberlin College 1987
M.T.S. Harvard Divinity School 1990
M.A. Princeton University 1995
Ph.D. Princeton University 1998
Teaching
Recent courses: R133 (Introduction to Religion), R379 (Religion and Philanthropy), R383 (Religion, Ethics, and U.S. Society), R384 (Religion, Ethics, and Health), R386 (Ethics of Consumption), R393 (Comparative Religious Ethics, R433 (Theories of Religion).
Publications
Books: Health Care as a Social Good: Religious Values and American Democracy (Georgetown University Press, 2014); John Ruskin and the Ethics of Consumption (University of Virginia Press, 2006). Sample Articles and Chapters: “Mission Integrity Matters: Balancing Catholic Health Care Values and Public Mandates, in Law, Religion, and Health Care in America (Cambridge University Press, 2017); “Everyone at the Table?: Religious Activism and Health Care Reform in Massachusetts,” Journal of Religious Ethics (2012): 335-358; “Debating Desire: Civil Rights, Ritual Protest, and the Shifting Boundaries of Public Reason,” Journal of the Society of Christian Ethics (2007): 157-82; and “The Give and Take of Philanthropy” in Good Intentions (Indiana University Press, 2005).
Awards
IUPUI Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Civic Engagement, 2015
IUPUI Trustees Teaching Award, 2003-04
IUPUI Trustees Teaching Award, 2006-07
Faculty Author and Leader, inaugural IUPUI Common Theme Project, 2008-2010
Academic Interests
History of religious and secular traditions of moral thought in the west, economic justice, health care ethics, ethics of consumption, virtue theory, democratic theory, religion and politics, religion and social theory.
Service
Steering Committee, Ethics Section, American Academy of Religion (2000-2006)
