Janet Radcliffe Richards (born 1944) is a British philosopher specialising in

bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...

and

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social equality of the sexes. Feminism incorporates the position that society prioritizes the male po ...

and Professor of Practical Philosophy at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. She is the author of ''The Sceptical Feminist'' (1980), ''Philosophical Problems of Equality'' (1995), ''Human Nature after Darwin'' (2000), and ''The Ethics of Transplants'' (2012). __TOC__

Biography

Richards was lecturer in Philosophy at the

Open University The Open University (OU) is a British public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off- ...

1979–1999, and Director of the Centre for Bioethics and Philosophy of Medicine at

University College London , mottoeng = Let all come who by merit deserve the most reward , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £143 million (2020) , budget = ...

until 2007. Since 2008, she has been Professor of Practical Philosophy at

Oxford University Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

. She was in a relationship with philosopher

Derek Parfit Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 1 or 2 January 2017) was a British philosopher who specialised in personal identity, rationality, and ethics. He is widely considered one of the most important and influential moral philosophers of ...

from 1982, and they were married from 2010 until his death in 2017.

Work

Richards is the author of several books, papers and articles, and has sat on a variety of advisory and working committees in areas of philosophy and bioethics. She is also a Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and posts regularly at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

's Practical Ethics: Ethical Perspectives on the News website. Her identification with feminism and her focus on bioethics both occurred "by accident" during the writing of her first book, ''The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry'' (Routledge, 1980; Penguin, 1982) – bioethics being central to the abortion debate. The book proved to be controversial within and without feminism, e.g. in regard to standards of rationality, fashion and style, and her liberal stance. Her second book, ''Human Nature After Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction'' (Routledge, 2001) explores the so-called Darwin Wars, including what implications Darwinism raises for philosophy and the application of critical thinking to various arguments put forward in the debate. It was originally written as an introduction to philosophical techniques for Open University students using the controversies relating to Darwinian thinking and human nature. Richards is a firm believer in

effective altruism Effective altruism is a philosophical and social movement that advocates "using evidence and reason to figure out how to benefit others as much as possible, and taking action on that basis". People who pursue the goals of effective altruism, c ...

and is since April 2014 a member of

Giving What We Can Giving What We Can (GWWC) is an effective altruism-associated organisation whose members pledge to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities. It was founded at Oxford University in 2009 by the philosopher Toby Ord, physician-in- ...

, a community of people who have pledged to give at least 10% of their income to effective charities.

Bibliography

''The Sceptical Feminist: A Philosophical Enquiry'', Routledge, (1980)
* ''Human Nature After Darwin: A Philosophical Introduction'', Routledge, (2001) * "Why Feminist Epistemology Isn't" (1997) in ''The Flight from Science and Reason'' P. Gross, N. Levitt & M. Lewis; Johns Hopkins University Press.

Janet Radcliffe Richards, ''Issues Med Ethics''. 2001 April–June;9(2)

References

External Links

Faculty page at Oxford UniversityReason and romance: The world’s most cerebral marriage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Richards, Janet Radcliffe 1944 births 20th-century British philosophers 21st-century British philosophers Academics of University College London Bioethicists British women philosophers Feminist philosophers Living people