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Marc Cohen, PhD

Program Director, Professional MBA and Online MBA
Professor, Department of Management
Professor, Department of Philosophy
(shared appointment with College of Arts & Sciences)

Social philosopher, efficient bureaucrat, former banker, middle-school basketball coach, award-winning photographer.

Biography

Marc A. Cohen CV

Marc A. Cohen joined the faculty of the Albers School in the fall of 2008. He earned a doctorate in Philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania and holds a joint appointment in the philosophy department at Seattle University. His academic work concerns trust, business ethics, social contract theory, and more general questions in social/ political philosophy about what makes society more than an accidental crowd. Prior to joining Albers, Dr. Cohen served as vice president and corporate strategist at Branch Banking & Trust Co. (North Carolina), as assistant vice president in the Bank's middle market commercial lending group, and as a management consultant at Mercer Management Consulting (now part of Oliver Wyman). He also served as adjunct faculty in the philosophy departments at George Washington University and Wake Forest University.

Courses Taught

  • Business Ethics
  • Social and Political Philosophy
  • Management Theory

Publications

  • The Nature and Practice of Trust. Routledge (2023)
  • “Reconstructing the moral logic of the stakeholder approach, and reconsidering the participation requirement.” Philosophy of Management 22, no. 2 (2023): pp. 293-308
  • “Trust does beget trustworthiness, and also trust in others.” Social Psychology Quarterly 84, no. 2 (2021): pp. 189-201. Written with Mathew Isaac
  • “Generalized trust in Taiwan and (as evidence for) Hirschman’s doux commerce thesis.” Social Theory and Practice 46, no. 1 (2020): pp. 1-25
  • “The implicit morality of the market and Joseph Heath’s market failures approach to business ethics.” Journal of Business Ethics 159, no. 1 (2019): pp. 75-88. Written with Dean Peterson
  • “Apology as self-repair.” Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 21, no. 3 (2018): pp. 585-598
  • “The movement from ethics to social relationships for Levinas, and why decency obscures obligation.” International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 79, no. 2 (2016): pp. 89-100
  • “Alternative conceptions of generalized trust (and the foundations of the social order).” Journal of Social Philosophy 46, no. 4 (2015): pp. 463-47