Biography

Mark joined the Department in 1996, after completing his Bachelor’s and Doctoral degrees at the University of Oxford, where he also taught for several years. He specialises in contemporary political and moral philosophy, with particular reference to liberalism in domestic and international contexts.

Current Research

Mark is currently completing a monograph on an analytic-philosophical articulation and critical defence of just war theory. His particular focus in recent publications has been on the concept of jus post bellum: justice in the ending and aftermath of war. He has been invited to speak on this topic at a number of recent international conferences, including the XXII World Congress of Philosophy, which was held at Seoul National University in Korea, which he also attended as the official delegate of the British Philosophical Association. (For more information, see: www.swansea.ac.uk/Humanities/newsArchive/2008-2009/Headline,27708,en,php.) In developing this particular research interest he is also working on the pragmatics of moral and political criticism in discourse; the concept of a thin-universalist morality; ‘world citizenship’, imperfect obligations and the ethics of individual responsibility; and the distinction between ideal and non-ideal theory.

Mark’s other major research project is on “Freedom and Democracy: European Perceptions, European Perspectives”, which was the title of a conference he helped to organise with colleagues from the Faculty of Humanities, University of Primorska, Koper, Slovenia and Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, Germany, and which was held in Slovenia in December 2008. With these and other colleagues from European universities, he is currently participating in major collaborative research networks on the conference’s theme and will be organising a follow-up event to be held in Swansea in 2010.

 For more information on this event, follow this link: www.swansea.ac.uk/Humanities/NewsArchive/2007-2008/Headline,25425,en.php.
 Mark is also engaged in a book project on Socialism: Dead or Alive? Analytical Leftism Today in association with Professor Rodney G. Peffer of the University of San Diego and the Radical Philosophy Association.

Mark supervises several research students working in his areas of research, and articles by some of them were recently published in “War, Terror and Ethics”, a special edition of the International Journal of Ethics which he guest-edited.

Selected Recent Publications

•  Evans, M. (2008) “Balancing Peace, Justice and Sovereignty in Jus Post  Bellum: The Case of Just Occupation” in Millennium 36 (3) (link). 
•  Evans, M. (2007) Self-Realization: Politics and the Good Life in Modern Times, New York: Nova (link).
• Evans, M. (2006) “The Republic of Bullshit: On The Dumbing-Up of  Democracy” in G. Reisch, G. Hardcastle (eds.), Bullshit and Philosophy (Chicago IL: Open Court) (link).
• Evans, M. (2005) Just War Theory: A Reappraisal (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press) (link).