John Arras papers

John Dyer Arras, 1945-2015, was a noted professor of philosophy and bioethics at the University of Virginia. Arras was born in San Mateo, California, to Ernest Arras Sr., and Margaret Dyer, on 25 August 1945. Arras studied at the Institute of European Studies and the University of Paris (Sorbonne) before graduating from the University of San Francisco in 1967 with degrees in Philosophy and French. After spending two years with the Peace Corps in Sierra Leone, he attended graduate school at Northwestern University, where he received a doctorate in Philosophy in 1972. Arras’ doctoral work focused on existentialism and Continental philosophy.
Arras held positions as an assistant and associate professor of philosophy at University of the Redlands in California (1971-1981) and also served as the chairman of the philosophy department. He also taught at the State University of New York—College at Purchase as a visiting associate professor of philosophy (1980-1982), the Albert Einstein College of Medicine—Montefiore Medical Center as an associate professor of bioethics and health policy (1981-1995), Barnard College at Columbia University as an adjunct associate professor of philosophy (1982-1995), and Wesleyan University in Connecticut as a visiting professor of philosophy (1987).
In 1995, Arras came to the University of Virginia, where he held the position of the Porterfield Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Professor of Philosophy and Public Health Sciences for twenty years. At UVA he also served on the faculty of the Center for Bioethics and Humanities, and as the Director of the Undergraduate Program in Bioethics. Arras taught introduction to bioethics courses, as well as courses on topics of life and death, justice and health care, ethics of research with human subjects, global justice, and methods of bioethics. In addition, he co-taught multiple courses at the UVA Law School with Professor Richard Bonnie on bioethics and law. During his time at UVA, Arras received the UVA Alumni Association Distinguished Professor award for 2004-2005 and the Virginia State Council of Higher Education Outstanding Faculty Award for 2006.
Arras was a longtime Fellow, former Chair of the Fellows Council, and former Board member of The Hastings Center. He was also a founding member of the ethics advisory board for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He served on the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues, and the national ethics committee of the March of Dimes, and was a frequent consultant at the National Institutes of Health.
Arras pursued a wide range of research topics, including physician-assisted suicide, rationing of medical care, social disparities in health care, global justice, and research on human subjects. He was also known for his expertise on ethical theory and the methods of bioethics. Arras died of a stroke in Galveston, Texas, on 9 March 2015.