Mylan Engel

Mylan Engel Jr. (born 1960) is an associate professor of philosophy at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb.

Biography

Born in Alabama and educated at Vanderbilt University and the University of Arizona, he was hired by Northern Illinois University in 1988. Engel has also served as Guest Professor at the University of Innsbruck, Austria (1999) and University of Maribor, Slovenia (1999–2002).

Engel's specialties are Epistemology, Philosophy of Religion, Scottish philosopher Thomas Reid, Animal Ethics, and Environmental Ethics.

Engel is a "moral vegetarian" (vegan) -the belief that we are morally obligated to refrain from eating meat—and has argued that virtually all humans hold beliefs that, if consistently applied, would make them moral vegetarians as well.Mylan Engel, Jr. "The Immorality of Eating Meat," in The Moral Life: An Introductory Reader in Ethics and Literature, Louis P. Pojman, ed. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), pp. 856-89

He is also a religious skeptic who contends that there are no good reasons for believing in God. He goes on to argue that the absence of positive evidence for God's existence makes atheism (disbelief in God) more defensible than agnosticism (suspension of belief as to whether God exists or not). Here Engel points out that we generally disbelieve in creatures like unicorns—rather than merely suspend belief as to whether unicorns exist—solely...
Read More