Cassie Finley

Cassie Finley is a philosopher interested in the epistemic and moral virtues of dialogue. Drawing together work on pedagogy, character formation, and virtue epistemology—as well as experiences teaching dialogue-centered philosophy courses in  both undergraduate and K-12 settings—she is developing a “Virtue Dialogue” framework for cultivating moral, intellectual, and civic virtues through, and for the sake of, engaging in meaningful dialogues. Her dissertation, “On the Unity of Moral and Intellectual Virtue”, defends a “Strong” unity of the virtues—arguing that categorical distinctions between virtues are ultimately illusory. As the inaugural Dialogue & Civil Disagreement Fellow at Wesleyan University, she spent 2024-25 designing virtue-dialogue-based courses for undergraduate students and supporting the work of the Intercollegiate Civil Disagreement Partnership. Her current research focuses on articulating a virtue dialogue account of (un)grading, partly to address the challenges AI has posed for education.