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Dr Sam Clark

Lecturer in Philosophy

Degree: I was educated at York (BA Philosophy, 1996), Queen's College Oxford (BPhil, 2000) and York again (PhD, 'Anarchism, Social Possibility, & Utopia', 2004).

Personal website

Current Teaching

Michaelmas term 2011:

• PPR.202 Ethics
• PPR.450 What is Philosophy?

Lent 2012:

• PPR.309 Practical Philosophy: Capitalism as an Ethical Problem
• PPR.459 Ethics & Governance

See here for free-to-download audio of various lectures I've given in the last few years.

Research Interests

I work on the nature and conditions of human flourishing (aka well-being, welfare, happiness). My earlier work includes publications on anarchist utopianism, the nature of human sociability, William Godwin, Peter Kropotkin, and David Hume. More recently, I have been interested in describing a perfectionist ethic, in which the guiding claim is that human flourishing is the good, and consists in the development and expression of central human and individual capacities. Two obvious questions for the perfectionist which arise from this claim are: (i) which capacities? and (ii) how are they to be cultivated? I address them by engaging both with classic and modern value theory (Aristotle, Hume, Mill; James Griffin, Harry Frankfurt, Martha Nussbaum) and with selected autobiographies (Frederick Douglass, Edmund Gosse, Mill again) and military memoirs (Tim O'Brien, George Orwell), which I read as a distinctive form of ethical reflection. This work has so far given rise to papers on the roles and sources of independence, aesthetic sensibility, comradeship, and pleasure in the good life. I continue to work on these topics, as well as on the roles and sources of self-observation and self-expression in that life, and on related methodological questions.

Potential Doctoral Proposals

Moral philosophy, especially value theory, human nature, human flourishing, the self.

Political philosophy, especially anarchism, socialism, utopianism.

History of moral and political thought, especially Hobbes, Hume, Godwin, Mill, Kropotkin.

Autobiography.

Other academic activities

Convenor, Part I studies in Philosophy.

To first-year philosophy students: most of your questions are answered in the PHIL100 Guide & Reader. If yours isn't, post a question on the course LUVLE forum, email me, or drop into my office hours.

Additional Information

Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database

Sam Clark has 7 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

Other Interests and Hobbies

Apart from philosophy, I enjoy reading poetry and history, listening to jazz and other experimental music, and spending time with my wife Em and son Hal.

Associated Keywords: Anarchism, Autobiography, David Hume, Ethics, Hobbes, John Stuart Mill , Moral philosophy, Peter Kropotkin, Political philosophy, Political theory, Self, Utopianism, Value Theory, William Godwin

View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with Sam Clark.

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