PHILOSOPHICAL ANTHROPOLOGY · ETHICS OF CARE · LOVE AS ONTOLOGY

The human person, the metaphysics beneath the ethical disputes, and the dialectical method for thinking together.

Stephen Bujno, Ph.D., thinks and writes at the intersection of philosophical anthropology and the ethics of care. His ontology yields respect for the person, rigor for the truth, and the patience to navigate the contested questions of public life with rational care. A bourbon for my thoughts.

About
Stephen Bujno

Stephen Bujno, Ph.D., is Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Villanova University, where he teaches the foundational philosophy course and the ethics course required of pre-med, nursing and biomedical engineering students.

His doctorate, in the philosophy of political and social thought, was completed at the Global Center for Advanced Studies College in Dublin. He also holds advanced degrees in philosophical anthropology and moral theology. His writing proceeds in two registers. The applied register addresses the public dialogue on contested questions of ethics, bioethics, and the formation of conscience. The philosophical register addresses anthropology as an ontology that forms moral being.

He is the founder and editor of Lacuna Press, a micropublisher seeking original projects often neglected by the industry but belonging at the center of serious intellectual life. He is also an artist; he created Bujno Pottery along with his wife Tina, who is its owner and operator.

He has lectured before legislators, clerics, and students on the philosophical anthropology beneath the public abortion question, and has taught the dialectical method to nurses, physicians, seminarians, and undergraduates for over twenty years. He lives in Adamstown, Pennsylvania.

Books
Cognella · 2022 · Second Edition August 2026

Ethics of Care and Wellness

An Inquiry for Professionals, Caregivers, and Patients

An ethics of health care framed in light of an authentic understanding of the human person and the common good. Written for professionals, caregivers, and patients alike, the book turns the clinical conversation inward and asks what is upstream of every protocol and ethical principle.

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Wipf and Stock · 2026

Autonomy, Consciousness, and Personhood

A Primer for the Public Dialogue on Abortion

A primer in logic and critical thinking that reorients the public abortion dialogue away from the binaries of life and choice and toward the central issue of personhood. The book proceeds dialectically, treating the customary objections seriously and pressing them against what they claim to be.

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Cognella · 2026

Moral Being

Freedom, Society, and Beauty

Part original treatise and part anthology, the book addresses Christian morality from an orthodox position without overt dogmatism. Eight chapters move through freedom, the moral self, society, and the place of beauty in the moral life. Foreword by Brendan Sammon.

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Angelico Press · 2026

Apology

Love as the State of Things

A speculative narrative in the form of Justin Martyr’s second-century defense. The Christian landscape is divided among the Compromised, the Radicals, and the Weak. The story unfolds as a letter from an imprisoned member of the Weak to a secular authority. Middle volume of a trilogy.

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En Route Books · 2020

The Ways of Love

Transforming the Person

A guided journal absorbing the boundaries of philosophical anthropology, humanistic psychology, and Christian spirituality. Twelve themes across one hundred days, addressed in the second person, drawing the reader into the daily discipline of attention and self-honesty. Foreword by Ronda Chervin.

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In Development
In Preparation
Being and Love
Personagenesis and the Harmony of the Absolute
A philosophical monograph extending the doctoral dissertation. Six parts, eighteen chapters, arguing that love is not what being does but what being is, the last abstraction in which knowing, being, and loving are convertible.
In Preparation
Ways of Love: Ethics of Care and Wellness Edition
For Professionals, Caregivers, and Patients
A healthcare-vocation edition. Fourteen Ways across one hundred days, pairing the original journal’s reflective form with the substance of Ethics of Care and Wellness.
A Trilogy
The Apology Trilogy

Three volumes of theological narrative in three classical forms of address: the soliloquy, the apology, and the apocalypse. Apology has been published as the middle volume. The two further volumes have since been declared. The writing order inverts the reading order.

SoliloquiesVolume One · Idea Formation
In the form of Augustine’s Soliloquia, the soul to itself in the presence of God. To be written last.
Apology: Love as the State of ThingsVolume Two · Published 2026
Originally written as a stand-alone. The book that now centers the trilogy.
ApocalypseVolume Three · In Development
The eschatological volume. A combined form of the Shepard of Hermas and John's Apocalypse.
Selected Essays
2014
Liturgical Man: An Anthropology of Light
Chapter · Good Books Media
2019
Review of William Desmond, The Intimate Universal
Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory
2012
Marked Men: The Battle of the Soul
Social Justice Review
2011
Embryo Adoption, Nuptiality, and the Annunciation
Social Justice Review
2010
Economic Ideology: A Virtueless Recovery
Social Justice Review
Theses
2020
Doctoral Dissertation · GCAS College, Dublin
Committee chair: Creston Davis. Committee: William Desmond, John Milbank, Julie Reshe, Rocco Gangle.
2014
Master’s Thesis · Holy Apostles College and Seminary
Advisor: Alan Vincelette.
Courses
Foundational
Knowledge, Reality, Self
Villanova University

An exploration of philosophical responses to the questions of how we can know, what is real, and what is the nature of the human person. Readings explore the dialogue on these questions between Catholic/Christian responses and secular and skeptical perspectives.

Pre-Medical and Nursing
Ethics for Health Care Professionals
Villanova University

This course serves both as an introduction to philosophical ethics and its application to clinical case studies. While developing skills in logic and critical thought, the student should expect to consider various applications for the ethics of care and wellness. Those will include medical consent and privacy, maternal/fetal care and end of life/futility, testing and research, mental health and disability, access and allocation, along with emergent bioethical topics. Fundamental questions of life will also be addressed, such as what it means to be ethical and what constitutes personhood. An underlying ethos of the course is to align professional medical care with respect and dignity for the patient as a person.

Previously

Introduction to Philosophy · Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania

Medical Moral · Alvernia University, Reading, Pennsylvania

Bioethics · Saint Joseph's College of Maine, Standish, Maine

Foundations in Moral Theology · Saint Joseph's College of Maine, Standish, Maine

Philosophy for Catholic Theology · Saint Joseph's College of Maine, Standish, Maine

Critical Thinking and Logic · Penn State University, Berks Campus, Reading, Pennsylvania

Catholic Social Teaching · Saint Joseph's University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Morality and Ethics · St. Charles Borromeo Graduate School of Theology, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Ethics and Moral Problems · Northampton Community College, Northampton, Pennsylvania

Ethics in Global Society · Southern New Hampshire University, Manchester, New Hampshire

He has also advised many Master's candidates at Saint Joseph's College of Maine and doctoral candidates at Pontifex University.

Contact

For lectures, manuscript reviews, and editorial correspondence:

stephen@bujno.com

Curriculum Vitae