Career
Thomas is noted for his work on moral theory, on social philosophy and on American Blacks and Jews. Thomas asserts that we owe special "moral deference" to what he calls "diminished social category" people, that is, to individuals who belong to groups that are unjustly undervalued, we owe a presumption in favor of that person’s account of her experiences, for example, if a black woman in a white society claims that she has been subjected to racism, her allegation must be taken especially seriously. He has held appointments at Notre Dame, University of Maryland, and Oberlin College, and in 1994 was a visiting scholar in the Religion Department at the University of Michigan.
He has given the Lawrence Kohlberg Lecture at the Association of Moral Education (1993) and the fifth Meyer Warren Tenenbaum and Labelle Tenenbaum Lecture at the University of South Carolina.
Thomas"s teaching has been widely noted and praised, including feature in the Education Section of The New York Times in 1992. He was named Syracuse University"s Scholar-Teacher of the Year in 1993.
In July 1997, he presented the Kovler Lectures at the Medical School of the University of Cape Town, South Africa. These lectures will become part of his forthcoming book on moral objectivity and evil.
He has been the Lincoln Lecturer (Fall 2002) at Arizona State University and in October 2000, he lectured before Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.
Laurence Thomas is the author of more than 100 articles He has written extensively on the topic of friendship. One of Laurence Thomas"s most highly regarded essays is entitled "Being Moral and Handling the Truth".
lieutenant was published in Social Philosophy and Policy.
In this discussion about the morality of lying Thomas gives an example of when a lie can actually be virtuous, such as lying at a friend"s wedding that one has just learned that one is terminally illinois
