In memoriam: W. David Solomon, founding director of the Center for Ethics and Culture
W. David Solomon, associate professor of philosophy emeritus and founding director of what became known as the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture at the University of Notre Dame, died on February 26, 2025. He was 81.
Solomon received his bachelor’s degree from Baylor University and his doctorate in philosophy from the University of Texas before joining the Notre Dame faculty in 1968, where his teaching and research focused on virtue ethics, ethical theory and medical ethics. In 1999, Solomon founded the Center for Ethics and Culture, where he served as director until 2012. He retired from teaching in 2016 after almost 50 years at the University.
“It is difficult to overstate the impact of David Solomon’s legacy at the University of Notre Dame,” said Jennifer Newsome Martin, current director of the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. “His entire life was a cheerful testament not only to the pursuit of knowledge but also of wisdom and virtue. Those of us who hold dear the lively witness of the Catholic intellectual and moral tradition at Notre Dame — and beyond — remain ever in his debt.”
Solomon envisioned the Center for Ethics and Culture as an institution that would draw on the rich Catholic moral and intellectual tradition to adjudicate complex questions in the field of contemporary ethics. “Normative teaching and inquiry at Notre Dame should be distinguished by fidelity to the core convictions of the tradition of thought Notre Dame has inherited,” its early Task Force on Ethics stated, “that human beings are created in the image of a God who loves us and calls us to eternal life; that we therefore have a dignity which cannot be alienated, overridden or ignored; and that the most vulnerable among us have the most urgent claim on the consciences of us all.”
In 2012, Solomon passed the directorship of the Center for Ethics and Culture to O. Carter Snead, Charles E. Rice Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame.
“David Solomon was, of course, one of Notre Dame’s most beloved and dedicated teachers, a shining light of creativity and dynamism in its philosophy department, and the visionary founder of what is now called the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture,” Snead said. “And he was a tireless and courageous voice at Notre Dame on behalf of the intrinsic equal dignity of all members of the human family, born and unborn. But his greatest gift to us was as an exemplar and witness of life most fully lived — as a faithful son of the Church, devoted husband to his beloved Lou, loving father and grandfather, and unfailingly generous friend to us all.”
During his 13 years as director of the Center for Ethics and Culture, Solomon established the annual fall conference, now the University’s largest interdisciplinary academic conference, which gathers more than 1,200 guests and 150 speakers — both Catholic and those from other faith traditions — for three days of conversation and exchange on the most vexed questions of ethics, culture and public policy today. Speakers have included Alasdair MacIntyre, John Finnis, Charles Taylor, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Michael Sandel and Mary Ann Glendon. Under his guidance, the Center for Ethics and Culture also administered the University’s annual medical ethics conference and established the Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal, awarded annually on behalf of the University to heroic individuals whose life work has served to proclaim the gospel of life.
An excellent academic administrator, Solomon’s passion for teaching and mentoring students quickly endeared him to undergraduate and graduate students alike. During his tenure at the University, Solomon served as the director of undergraduate studies in the Department of Philosophy, founded and directed the Arts & Letters/Science Honors Program and directed the Notre Dame London Program.
At the graduate level, Solomon directed 36 doctoral dissertations in the Department of Philosophy, the most of any professor in the department’s history, and taught the entry-level course 20th Century Ethical Theory. Later in his career, more than 200 undergraduates each spring semester would take his signature ethics course, Morality and Modernity, based on MacIntyre’s seminal work “After Virtue.” He also taught medical ethics to more than 250 undergraduate students each year, as well as upper-division courses in contemporary ethics and special topics in ethics.
Following his retirement, Solomon continued to remain actively involved in the work of the center, introducing MacIntyre’s popular keynote address at every Fall Conference and joining in the annual celebration of the Evangelium Vitae Medal. In 2016, through the generosity of its benefactors, the Center for Ethics and Culture established the graduate Solomon Fellowship, awarded each year to an outstanding doctoral student who shares his passion for Notre Dame’s distinctive Catholic character and mission. In 2019, the Center for Ethics and Culture was renamed the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture, following a transformative gift from Anthony and Christie de Nicola.
A conference in Solomon’s honor at Notre Dame in 2014 led to the publication of “Beyond the Self: Virtue Ethics and the Problem of Culture,” with contributions from many of his graduate students and collaborators in the revival of virtue ethics.
“Some scholars as they move towards the end stages of their careers worry about whether what they have done for decades has mattered or made a difference,” wrote Rev. Bill Miscamble, C.S.C., in a 2016 essay in the Irish Rover on the occasion of Solomon's retirement. “But the good women and men gathered at that conference in 2014 are irrefutable evidence of David Solomon’s enduring and substantial contribution to philosophy at Notre Dame. … He has given of himself for his students, his colleagues and his friends, and Notre Dame is a much better place because of him.”
Born and raised a Southern Baptist, Solomon and his wife were received into the Catholic Church in May 2024. A funeral Mass will be celebrated on Friday, March 7, at 2:30 p.m. in the Basilica of the Sacred Heart at the University of Notre Dame; visitation will be held at Kaniewski Funeral Homes in South Bend on Thursday, March 6, from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Originally published by at ethicscenter.nd.edu on February 27, 2025.
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