2020 Winner of the Professor Cecil L. Eubanks Award for the Study of Ethics

Sebastian Brumfield Mejia

We are pleased to announce that Sebastian Brumfield Mejía is this year’s winner of the Professor Cecil L. Eubanks Award for the Study of Ethics. This annual award recognizes excellence in undergraduate research in ethics.

Sebastian will be graduating from the Honors College in fall of 2020 with a triple major in Philosophy, Political Science, and Sociology. This award is being granted in recognition of an essay that Sebastian wrote for Dr. Husain Sarkar’s course in Problems in Ethical Theory. His essay is titled “Measuring the Greatest Weight: Understanding Nietzsche’s Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence.” In Dr. Sarkar’s nomination letter, he noted that “Sebastian offers a neat and novel interpretation that would show how Nietzsche could provide a solution to the problem of nihilism: a solution that shows how one can manage subjective values and escape self-deception, while endorsing Eternal Recurrence and the philosophy of the god Dionysus. Not bad for an undergraduate two years into philosophy.” Dr. Sarkar is now directing Sebastian’s Honors Thesis, also focused on Nietzsche.

Sebastian is the son of Jacob Brumfield, Associate Dean of Students and Director of Campus Life at LSU, and Doris Mejía, East Baton Rouge Parish Housing Authority. Sebastian has long held an interest in ethics. When he was 6 years old, he wanted to set up a food bank in his family’s front yard. Fast forward to the fall of 2018 and he continued pursuing these interests during his time studying abroad at the University of Johannesburg in South Africa. He currently studies in the Department of Philosophy and works closely with Dr. Husain Sarkar and Dr. Raff Donelson.

Upon his graduation, Sebastian hopes to pursue a doctoral program in philosophy and ethics.