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Dr Garrath Williams

Senior Lecturer in Philosophy

Degree: I took all my degrees at the University of Manchester. My first degree was in Philosophy & Politics; my MA was undertaken in the Centre for Social Ethics and Policy, and my PhD (on Kant's theory of action) in the Department of Government.

Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Bioethics and Medical Law, Research Group on Europe and Globalisation

Personal website

Current Teaching

I have taught moral philosophy, political thought and applied ethics. My recent teaching at Lancaster includes:

• Continental Philosophy (PHIL228), on Nietzsche, Foucault and Arendt
• Reading Political Theory (POLI304i), on Hobbes and Arendt (with Sam Clark)
• Philosophy of the Human Sciences (PPR.203 and PPR.310), on philosophy of social science
• Postgraduate teaching in bioethics including Foundations of Bioethics (PPR.454) and Children and Health (PPR.455,co-taught with David Archard)
• First year lectures on Ethics, Philosophy and Religion (EPR100)

As a Socrates teacher at the University of Helsinki I have taught on Kant's moral philosophy and on Hannah Arendt. In 2006 I also lectured on Kant's account of reason as part of the annual China Philosophy Summer School (organised by Nick Bunnin), with Sebastian Gardner, Onora O'Neill and Thomas Pogge.

Research Interests

My main interest over the past several years has been the concept of responsibility. The concept brings together a number of fundamental areas of enquiry, not all of which have received much attention from philosophers. Contemporary philosophers have focussed on two related topics. One is the nature of responsible agency - especially what distinguishes sane adult human beings from other, non-responsible agents. The other is the justification of blame and punishment, as modes of holding these agents responsible for wrong-doing. I am also interested in two further topics: One is how we define and allocate responsibilities to people - not only general moral duties, but also more particular responsibilities attaching to particular social roles. The other concerns the virtue of responsibility: if all sane adults are responsible, it is still true that some are more responsible than others. Understanding the relation between these four areas of concern is the task of my current book project.

In the history of philosophy, I have worked on Kant (going back to my doctoral thesis), Hannah Arendt (editing four volumes of 'Critical Assessments' of her work), Nietzsche and Hobbes. All remain crucial for my current work - Kant for his emphasis on intersubjectivity, Arendt on the nature of action and judgment, Nietzsche on our uses and abuses of morality, and Hobbes on the explosive dangers of normative disagreement.

I also work in applied ethics, with colleagues in Lancaster's Centre for Bioethics and Medical Law. I am currently involved in an EU funded project on childhood obesity. IDEFICS (Identification and prevention of dietary-and lifestyle-induced health effects in children and infants) is an EU Integrated Project coordinated by BIPS (Bremer Instituts für Präventionsforschung und Sozialmedizin), Bremen University. Our research focuses on the ethical and public policy implications of the intervention trials that will be made by the scientific partners in the project. I will also be involved in a follow-up EU project, I.Family, to commence in March 2011 and also coordinated by BIPS, Bremen. Previously, I have done training and consultancy in police ethics (with the Lancashire Constabulary), training and writing in research ethics, and collaborative and individual research on genetic banking.

Potential Doctoral Proposals

I have research interests across normative ethics, political theory and applied ethics, and would be especially interested to hear from potential doctoral students considering research on Kant's practical philosophy, Hannah Arendt, and the philosophy of responsibility.

Publications

Under three headings: Philosophy; Political Science and Theory; and Applied Ethics.

Note on electronic access

Titles with hyperlinks go directly to the freely-available published version. Where this is not possible, 'E-print' gives access to the published version or a pre-publication text via Lancaster e-prints server; 'E-print record' gives access to abstract only; 'Published version' will usually require a suitable subscription.

Philosophy:

'Responsibility' in Ruth Chadwick (ed), Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics, 2nd edition (Academic Press, San Diego, 2012: volume 3, 821-828)

'"Intelligible facts": A constructivist account of action and responsibility,' in Sorin Baiasu, Sami Pihlström and Howard Williams (eds) Politics and Metaphysics in Kant (Wales University Press, Cardiff, 2011: 196-214) (E-print - longer prepublication version)

'"Who are we to judge?" - on the proportionment of happiness to virtue,' Philosophy 85(1) (2010), 47-66 (Published version)

'Moral responsibility' Oxford Bibliographies Online (2010)

'Kant's account of reason' Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (2008)

'Responsibility as a virtue,' Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 11(4) (2008), 455-470 (E-print/Published version)

'Judges in our own case: Kantian legislation and responsibility attribution,' Politics and Ethics Review (special issue on 'Kantian Justifications of Political Norms'), 3(1) (2007), 8-23 (journal has been retitled: now Journal of International Political Theory - Published version)

'Responsibility' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (May 2006, updated October 2010)

'Geoffrey Vickers: philosopher of responsibility,' Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 22(4) (July/August 2005), 291-298 (Published version)

'Praise and blame' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (June 2004) (a slightly different version available as 'Two approaches to moral responsibility,' in two parts in the Richmond Journal of Philosophy, issue 6 (Spring 2004), 14-19 & issue 7 (Summer 2004), 20-26)

'Blame and responsibility,' Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 6(4) (December 2003), 427-445 (Published version)

'Nietzsche's response to Kant's morality,' Philosophical Forum 30(3) (September 1999), 201-216 (Published version)

'The question of meaning in Kant's thinking on freedom,' Philosophical Forum 30(2) (June 1999), 115-131 (Published version)

Political Science and Theory:

'The power of the people' [brief discussion of means and ends in Arendt's political theory], as part of the Hannah Arendt Centre's quote of the week series (2 April 2012), on-line at http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=5083

Entries on Gewissen/Moral [Conscience & Morality] and Verantwortung [Responsibility], in Wolfgang Heuer, Bernd Heiter & Stefanie Rosenmüller (eds) Hannah Arendt-Handbuch: Leben - Werk - Wirkung (Metzler Verlag, Stuttgart, 2011: 284-286, 325-327)

'Philosophy' [focussing on Kant's 'Toward Perpetual Peace'], in Anne Sophie Krossa (ed), Europe in a Global Context (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, 2011: 50-61)

'Arendt, Hannah (1906-1975),' in Keith Dowding (ed) Encyclopedia of Power (Sage, Thousand Oaks CA, 2011: 26-28) (E-print)

'Dangerous victims: On some political dangers of vicarious claims to victimhood,' Distinktion - Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory (special issue on 'Violence and conflict'), 17 (2008), 77-95 (E-print)

'Ethics and human relationality: between Arendt's accounts of morality,' on-line at hannaharendt.net (Sept 2007) (Italian version in Francesco Fistetti & Francesca R. Recchia Luciani (eds) Hannah Arendt: Filosofia e Totalitarismo (Il Nuovo Melangolo, Genova, 2007: 99-114))

As editor: Hannah Arendt: Critical assessments of leading political philosophers, 4 volume set (Routledge, London, 2006)

'"Infrastructures of responsibility": the moral tasks of institutions,' Journal of Applied Philosophy, 23(2) (May 2006), 207-221 (E-print/Published version)

'Monomaniacs or schizophrenics? Responsible governance and the EU's independent agencies,' Political Studies, 53(1) (March 2005), 82-99 (E-print record/Published version)

'Thomas Hobbes' Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (May 2003)

'Understanding the wrongs we do together' (review article of Christopher Kutz's Complicity), Res Publica 8(2) (July 2002), 201-210 (Published version)

'Normatively demanding creatures: Hobbes, the Fall & individual responsibility,' Res Publica 6(3) (November 2000), 301-310 (Published version)

'Love & responsibility: A political ethic for Hannah Arendt,' Political Studies 46(5) (December 1998), 937-950 (Published version)

Applied Ethics:

'Responsibilities for Health Care: Kantian Reflections,' with Ruth Chadwick, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 21(2) (April 2012), 155 - 165 (Published version)

'Children as means and ends in large-scale research,' Bioethics, in press but available online (Published version)

'The ethics of evaluating obesity-intervention studies on children,' with Dita Wickins-Drazilova, International Journal of Obesity 35 (Supplement 1) (April 2011), S. 24-9

'Childhood obesity: ethics and public policy,' with Dita Wickins-Drazilova, in Luis Moreno, Iris Pigeot & Wolfgang Ahrens (eds) Epidemiology of Obesity in Children and Adolescents (Springer, 2011: 7-20)

'Ethical and public policy aspects of childhood obesity: opinions of scientists working on an intervention study,' with Dita Wickins-Drazilova, Obesity Reviews 11 (August 2010), 620-626

'Bioethics and large-scale biobanking: individualistic ethics and collective projects,' Genomics, Society and Policy, 1(2) (August 2005), 50-66

'Ethical issues: overview,' with Mairi Levitt, Encyclopedia of Social Measurement, ed Kimberly Kempf-Leonard (Elsevier, 2004: vol. 1, 815-825)

'Human genetic banking: altruism, benefit and consent,' with Doris Schroeder, New Genetics and Society 23(1) (April 2004), 89-103 (Published version) (a slightly different version also appears as 'Human genetic banking and the limits of informed consent,' with Doris Schroeder, in Peter Glasner (ed) Reconfiguring Nature (Ashgate, Aldershot, 2004: 148-166))

'DNA-Banken, informierte Einwilligung und Treuhandschaft' (DNA banking, informed consent, and trusteeship), with Doris Schroeder, Ethik in der Medizin 14(2) (June 2002), 84-95 (Published version)

Other professional activities

I am Membership Officer for the UK Kant Society (http://www.keele.ac.uk/kant) and Honorary Treasurer for the Society for Applied Philosophy (http://www.appliedphil.org). I am also an area editor for Phil Papers (moral responsibility) and sit on the Editorial Board of Res Publica.

Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database

Garrath Williams has 31 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk

Williams, Garrath and Chadwick, Ruth (2012) Responsibilities for Health Care:Kantian Relections. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. ISSN 0963-1801 (In Press)

Williams, Garrath (2012) Responsibility. In: Encyclopedia of Applied Ethics. Academic Press, San Diego, pp. 821-828. ISBN 978-0-12-373632-1

Williams, Garrath (2011) ‘Intelligible facts’:Toward a constructivist account of action and responsibility. In: Politics and Metaphysics in Kant. Kantian Studies . Wales University Press, Cardiff, pp. 196-214. ISBN 978-0708323779

Williams, Garrath (2011) Children as means and ends in large-scale medical research. Bioethics. ISSN 0269-9702

Williams, Garrath (2010) "Who are we to judge?" - on the proportionment of happiness to virtue. Philosophy, 85 (1). pp. 47-66. ISSN 1469-817X

Williams, Garrath (2010) Moral responsibility. Oxford Bibliographies Online : Philosophy.

Williams, Garrath (2008) Responsibility as a Virtue. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 11 (4). pp. 455-470. ISSN 1572-8447

Williams, Garrath (2008) Dangerous victims: On some political dangers of vicarious claims to victimhood. Distinktion - Scandinavian Journal of Social Theory, 17 (sp. pp. 77-95. ISSN 1600-910X

http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/14469/1/Kant's_Account_of_Reason_(Stanford_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy).webarchive http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk/14469/2/Kant's_Account_of_Reason_>_Notes_(Stanford_Encyclopedia_of_Philosophy).webarchive Williams, Garrath (2008) Kant's Account of Reason. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. ISSN 1095-5054

Williams, Garrath (ed.) (2006) Hannah Arendt: Critical Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers. Critical Assessments of Leading Political Philosophers . Routledge, London. ISBN 0415343305

Associated Keywords: Bioethics, Children, Clinical research, Continental philosophy, Empirical bioethics, Ethics, Ethics of genetics, EU law and policy, Family, Food, Foucault, Genetics, Genomics, Hannah Arendt, Health, Health inequalities, History of philosophy, Hobbes, Kant, Medical ethics, Medical law and ethics, Nietzsche, Obesity, Organisations, Parenting, Philosophy, Political philosophy, Political theory, Public health, Public policy, Responsibility

View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with Garrath Williams.

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