MD Wright Torrey CV Revised 5-28-2013 - Biola University

Matthew D. Wright
Biola University
13800 Biola Avenue
La Mirada, CA 90638
562-944-0351, ext. 5554
matthew.wright@biola.edu
EDUCATION: 2011: Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin
Major Field of Concentration: Political Theory
Minor Field of Concentration: Public Law
2007: Visiting Student Research Collaborator
Princeton University
Department of Politics
Collaborator: Professor Robert P. George
2003: B.A., Biola University (summa cum laude)
La Mirada, California
Major Field of Concentration: History
Ph.D. THESIS: “A Vindication of Politics: Political Association and Human Flourishing.”
Precipitated by important work in recent natural law political theory, this
research revisits a fundamental question: Does political community itself
realize some aspect of human sociability intrinsic to our full flourishing or is
it simply an instrumental good? The inquiry begins with a thorough
examination of the merits of John Finnis’s influential argument for an
instrumental political common good, pointing to a significant lacuna in his
inattention to the value of political activity, as opposed to the operation of
government and law. In building an alternative positive account of political
association, the argument first draws upon Aquinas’s Aristotelian
commentaries to unpack the basic structure of part/whole relationships within
the “body politic.” I argue that political community is partially defined by the
nature of its basic constitutive parts. The next chapter considers the
substantive good of familial association, particularly in light of longstanding
concerns with the family’s particularity and inequality. I argue that the
intrinsically liberal and educative character of parental love rightly orients
children to virtuous activity and invests familial association with an inherent
rationality. The final two chapters bring direct focus onto the political
common good: First, I argue that a normatively compelling account of the
political common good must be both inclusivist, i.e., including within its
purpose the irreducibly diverse goods of individual persons and basic
associations within the community, and distinctive, i.e., including within the
calculus of practical reason the good of the political association as such.
Lastly, I argue that the political common good is intrinsically—though only
partially—constitutive of the human social good. Although a sufficiently
pluralistic account of human sociability places emphasis on the extensiveness

of the political good over the superiority of political activity per se, there are
essential human virtues—justice, love, generosity—that are uniquely (if not
exclusively) fostered in political community and potentially realized in civic
friendship.
Director: Professor J. Budziszewski
EXPERIENCE: Assistant Professor of Government, 2012 – present
Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University - La Mirada, CA
• History and Development of Political Theory
• Plato’s Republic
• Augustine’s City of God
• Thomas Aquinas’ Summa Theologica
• John Locke’s Second Treatise of Civil Government
Visiting Assistant Professor of Government, 2011-2012
School of Public Affairs, Morehead State University – Morehead, KY
• Philosophy of the Social Sciences
• American Government
• Jurisprudence
Assistant Instructor / Teaching Assistant, 2004-2011
Department of Government, University of Texas, Austin
• The American Constitutional Identity
• The Constitutional Debates
• Might and Right Among Nations
• Constitutional Interpretation
TEACHING INTERESTS: Great books of the Western tradition; statesmanship, the rule of law,
and the common good; civil society and political order; history of
political thought; contemporary political thought; patriotism and
international order; American constitutional law and development; civil
liberties; comparative constitutionalism; constitutional theory;
jurisprudence.
REFEREED ARTICLES – BOOK CHAPTERS:
“Natural Law, Civic Friendship, and Stanley Hauerwas’s Counter-Polis Thesis,” in Natural Law
and Evangelical Political Thought (Lexington Books, 2013), 225-249.
“The Aim of Law and the Nature of Political Community: An Assessment of Finnis on Aquinas,”
American Journal of Jurisprudence 54 (2009): 133-160.
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OTHER PUBLICATIONS:
“Getting Dignity Right,” published in the web magazine Public Discourse, August 17, 2012
(http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/08/5973/)
“The Changing Idea of a University: American Higher Education and the Illiberal Use of
Knowledge.” www.acton.org/programs/students/essay/2001/hmention2.html (published
2001)
“Prepared to Lead: A Defense of Liberal Education,” Symposium (publication of the Torrey
Honors Institute) 2, no. 3 (2002): 1-2.
“Seeking the Greater Good,” Symposium 1, no. 4 (2001): 5.
PAPERS GIVEN: “Civic Friendship as the Substantive Political Good,” presented at the Annual
Meeting of the Southwestern Political Science Association, New Orleans,
Louisiana, March 27-30, 2013.
“The Common Good, Civic Friendship, and Political Authority,” presented at the
Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, New Orleans,
Louisiana, August 30-September 2, 2012.
“Material and Special Parts in Aquinas’s Understanding of the Body Politic,”
presented at the annual meeting of the Southern Political Science Association,
New Orleans, Louisiana, January 12-14, 2012.
Discussant for panel, “Theories of Moral and Political Obligation” at the annual
meeting of the Southern Political Science Association, New Orleans, Louisiana,
January 12-14, 2012.
“Formal Properties of the Political Common Good,” presented at the annual
meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, Chicago, Illinois, March
31-April 3, 2011.
“Disentangling the Social and the Political in Thomistic Political Thought,”
presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association,
Chicago, Illinois, April 2009.
“The Roles of Family and State in the Moral Education of Children,” presented at
the annual conference of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture, The
Family: Searching for Fairest Love, South Bend, Indiana, November 6-8, 2008.
“Thomas Aquinas, John Finnis, and the Distinction between Public and Private,”
presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association,
Chicago, Illinois, April 2008. Also presented for the Graduate Research
Colloquium, Department of Government, University of Texas, Austin, April
2008.
“A Comparison of Hobbes and Spinoza on Human Nature, the State of Nature,
and the Social Contract,” presented at the Annual Meeting of the Southwestern
Political Science Association, San Antonio, Texas, April 2006.
“Pursuing the Ends of Government: The Political Theory and Context of the
Federalist Papers,” presented at the Torrey Honors Institute, Biola University,
Spring 2004.
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“The Imaginative Power of the Right to Property in the Formation of the
American Republic,” presented at the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference,
California State University, San Marcos, April 2003.
“The Investiture Controversy and the Papal Conception of Power,” presented at
the Phi Alpha Theta Regional Conference, Loyola Marymount University, April
2002.
LECTURES: “Natural Law and the Tao: What Stands Behind Lewis,” Torrey Honors
Institute, April 17, 2013.
GRANTS / FELLOWSHIPS:
Faculty
“The Federalists and Their Opponents,” Torrey Honors Institute, November
1, 2012.
“The Key to Locke,” Torrey Honors Institute, October 23, 2012.
“Natural Law and Natural Rights,” Philosophy Club, Morehead State
University, April 12, 2012.
Lecture Series Grant, 2013-2014. Charles Koch Foundation, Arlington, Virginia.
($7,000)
Summer Research Grant, 2013. The Earhart Foundation, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
($14,250)
Fellowship, Jack Miller Summer Institute, co-sponsored by the Jack Miller Center and
the University of Virginia’s Program on Constitutionalism and Democracy, the
University of Virginia, June 11-22, 2012. Theme: Citizenship and the American
Republic. ($2,700 + all expenses)
Graduate
Fellowship, American Studies Center Summer Institute, co-sponsored by the
Intercollegiate Studies Institute and Princeton University’s James Madison Program
in American Ideals and Institutions, Princeton University, June 13-25, 2011. Theme:
The Constitution and American Identity. ($1,000 + all expenses)
Malcom MacDonald Summer Research Fellowship. 2011, 2009. Department of
Government, University of Texas, Austin. ($5,000 each)
Joe R. Long Dissertation Fellowship. 2010. Department of Government, University of
Texas, Austin. ($7,500)
Western Civilization Fellowship. 2008-2009. Intercollegiate Studies Institute,
Wilmington, Delaware. ($20,000)
Graduate Dean Prestigious Fellowship Supplement. 2008-2009. Graduate School,
University of Texas, Austin.
Professional Development Award. 2008, 2009. Office of Graduate Studies, University
of Texas, Austin.
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H.B. Earhart Fellowship. 2006-2007. Earhart Foundation, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
($17,500 + tuition)
Calihan Research Fellowship. 2006, 2010. Acton Institute, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITY:
WORKSHOPS:
Research Proposal Referee, Fall 2012, Earhart Foundation, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Committee Member, Political Science Faculty Search, 2012-2013, School of Arts and
Sciences, Biola University.
Participant, “Marriage and the Social Sciences,” The Witherspoon Institute, Princeton, NJ,
June 9-12, 2010.
Participant, “Tyranny and the Defense of Liberty,” Intercollegiate Studies Institute / Liberty
Fund, Omaha, NE, April 22—25, 2010.
Participant, “Liberty, Commerce, and Character in Hume’s Essays,” Intercollegiate Studies
Institute / Liberty Fund, Mecosta, MI, August 21-24, 2008.
Participant, First Principles Seminar: “Natural Law Theory and Political Liberalism: John
Finnis and John Rawls,” The Witherspoon Institute, Princeton, NJ, August 5-16, 2006.
Participant, First Principles Seminar: “Natural Law Theory: The Old versus the New,” The
Witherspoon Institute, Princeton, NJ, August 8-19, 2005.
PROFESSIONAL American Political Science Association
ASSOCIATIONS: Southwestern Political Science Association
American Society for Political and Legal Philosophy
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