The William Lyon Chair in Professional Ethics
Major General William Lyon, Honorary Chairman ARDI Board of Directors
Chair Description
The William Lyon Chair in Professional Ethics was established by gifts to ARDI to recognize the national service and leadership of William Lyon (Maj Gen, USAF, Retired). At the conclusion of a distinguished military career, Gen Lyon was Chief of the Air Force Reserve from 1975-1979, a critical period during which the Reserves assumed vastly increased responsibilities for national defense. As a businessman, William Lyon headed one of the most productive home building and commercial building enterprises in the country. He continues to generously donate both time and money to improve public and private education. He is a past chairman of the board of the Falcon Foundation and the current chairman of ARDI.
Current Professor
Dr. Deonna D. Neal is currently serving as a distinguished visiting professor in the William H. Lyon Chair of Professional Ethics in the Department of Philosophy. Deonna is a 1994 graduate of the USAF Academy and after serving in the Air Force first as a Behavioral Scientist and then as a member of the USAF Presidential Honor Guard in Washington, DC.
After her time in the Air Force, Deonna went on to earn an Master of Divinity degree from the General Theological Seminary in New York City where she focused on religion and science, a Master of Philosophy degree from Oxford University where she wrote a thesis on the role of law in the development of the just war tradition, and a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, where she focused on ethics and moral theology. Her research is undertaken with an eye to bringing together military, philosophical and theological perspectives with respect to issues of religion and military identity and the impact of technology on the just war tradition. She teaches classes on moral theory and the just war tradition, comparative world religions and philosophy of religion.
Deonna is an active member of the International Society of Military Ethics and is a member of a working group based at Notre Dame concerned with the ethics of Emerging Technologies of National Security and Intelligence (ETNSI). Her chapter, “In Defense of Humanity: Why lethal decision-making should not be delegated to machines,” in Killing by Remote Control, will be forthcoming in late 2012 from Oxford University Press. Deonna is also an associate investigator on an aviation ethics project, which is examining the relationship between personal moral development and operator-induced mishaps. When she is not teaching or doing research, Deonna spends her time with a local soaring society where she is pursuing her certified flight instructor qualification.
Department
Alice McDermott Lecture in Applied Ethics
USAFA Department of Philosophy