Tom Lamar Beauchamp (born 1939) is an American philosopher specializing in the work of

David Hume David Hume (; born David Home; 7 May 1711 NS (26 April 1711 OS) – 25 August 1776) Cranston, Maurice, and Thomas Edmund Jessop. 2020 999br>David Hume" ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. Retrieved 18 May 2020. was a Scottish Enlightenment philo ...

moral philosophy Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...

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

animal ethics Animal ethics is a branch of ethics which examines human-animal relationships, the moral consideration of animals and how nonhuman animals ought to be treated. The subject matter includes animal rights, animal welfare, animal law, speciesism, ani ...

. He is Professor

Emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...

of Philosophy at

Georgetown University Georgetown University is a private university, private research university in the Georgetown (Washington, D.C.), Georgetown neighborhood of Washington, D.C. Founded by Bishop John Carroll (archbishop of Baltimore), John Carroll in 1789 as Georg ...

, where he was Senior Research Scholar at the

Kennedy Institute of Ethics The Kennedy Institute of Ethics (also known as Joseph and Rose Kennedy Institute of Ethics) is one of the most prestigious bioethics institutes in the world. Located at Healy Hall, it was established at Georgetown University in 1971 as a bioethi ...

. Beauchamp authored or co-authored several books on ethics and on Hume, including '' Hume and the Problem of Causation'' (1981, with

Alexander Rosenberg Alexander Rosenberg (who generally publishes as "Alex") is an American philosopher and novelist. He is the R. Taylor Cole Professor of Philosophy at Duke University, well known for contributions to philosophy of biology and philosophy of economic ...

), ''Principles of Biomedical Ethics'' (1985, with

James F. Childress James Franklin Childress (; born October 4, 1940) is a philosopher and theologian whose scholarship addresses ethics, particularly biomedical ethics. Currently he is the John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics at the Department of Religious ...

), and ''The Human Use of Animals'' (1998, with F. Barbara Orlans ''et al''). He is the co-editor with R. G. Frey of ''The Oxford Handbook of Animal Ethics'' (2011). He is also the co-editor of the complete works of Hume, ''The Critical Edition of the Works of David Hume'' (1999), published by Oxford University Press.

Education

He earned a BA from

Southern Methodist University , mottoeng = "The truth will make you free" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = SACS , academic_affiliations = , religious_affiliation = United Methodist Church , president = R. Gerald Turner , prov ...

in 1963, a BD from

Yale Divinity School Yale Divinity School (YDS) is one of the twelve graduate and professional schools of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut. Congregationalist theological education was the motivation at the founding of Yale, and the professional school has ...

, and PhD in philosophy from

Johns Hopkins University Johns Hopkins University (Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland. Founded in 1876, Johns Hopkins is the oldest research university in the United States and in the western hem ...

in 1970. He is a fellow of the

Hastings Center The Hastings Center is an independent, nonpartisan bioethics research institute and think tank based in Garrison, New York. It was instrumental in establishing the field of bioethics and is among the most prestigious bioethics and health policy i ...

Career

Beauchamp worked on the staff of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, where he co-wrote the

Belmont Report The ''Belmont Report'' is a report created by the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research. Its full title is the ''Belmont Report: Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human ...

in 1978. He subsequently joined with James Childress to write ''Principles of Biomedical Ethics'' (1979), the first major American bioethics textbook. Beauchamp is also an expert on the philosophy of David Hume. He is the coeditor of the complete works of Hume published by Oxford University Press, and together with Alexander Rosenberg is the author of ''Hume and the Problem of Causation'' (1981), in which Hume's regularity theory of causation is defended, along with a nonskeptical interpretation of Hume's arguments against induction. He has also written extensively about

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all sentient animals have moral worth that is independent of their utility for humans, and that their most basic interests—such as avoiding suffering—should be afforded the sa ...

, and has defended a theory of animal rights which would significantly alter, though would not end, the ways in which non-human animals are currently used. Beauchamp retired in 2016. A ceremony celebrating his career featured tributes from Maggie Little, Bill Blattner, Jeffrey Kahn,

James Childress James Franklin Childress (; born October 4, 1940) is a philosopher and theologian whose scholarship addresses ethics, particularly biomedical ethics. Currently he is the John Allen Hollingsworth Professor of Ethics at the Department of Religious ...

, Patricia King,

David DeGrazia David DeGrazia (born July 20, 1962) is an American moral philosopher specializing in bioethics and animal ethics. He is Professor of Philosophy at George Washington University, where he has taught since 1989, and the author or editor of several b ...

, Wayne Davis, Jack DeGioia, and his children.

Notes

External links

Homepage
Georgetown University. 1939 births Living people American animal rights scholars Bioethicists Hastings Center Fellows Hume scholars Georgetown University faculty Johns Hopkins University alumni Philosophers from Washington, D.C. Southern Methodist University alumni Yale Divinity School alumni {{Animal-rights-stub

Education

Career

See also

Notes

External links