Visiting Faculty Fellow, 2009-10

Lecturer in Political Theory, University of Exeter

Keith Hyams is a Lecturer in Political Theory at the University of Exeter, U.K. He works on a range of topics in contemporary political philosophy. During his fellowship at the Centre for Ethics, he will be working on equality. He aims to sharpen the Dworkinian view that hypothetical choices are central to distinguishing between legitimate and illegitimate distributions, rejecting the more recent emphasis on reasonable actual choice. He argues that when we render precise our intuitions about legitimate and illegitimate distributions, we see that they cannot be grounded in a commitment to equality of anything, but are, rather, grounded in commitment to freedom of choice about risk. Hyams also plans to examine the role of equality outside of distribute justice. He is particularly interested in looking from an ethical perspective at the goodness and badness of hierarchy, versus more egalitarian modes of organisation.

Hyams has further research interests in the ethics of climate change, consent, political authority, and ritual circumcision. He has published articles in The Journal of Political Philosophy, The Journal of Moral Philosophy and The Journal of Social Philosophy, and is completing a book entitled The Liberal Battleground: Consent in Morality and Politics.

Hyams studied for the BPhil at the University of Oxford, where he also completed his doctorate under the supervision of G. A. Cohen. His teaching draws both on his philosophical interests and his time spent working with social movements and minority groups in the developing world.