Brad Hooker (born 13 September 1957)
is a
British-American philosopher who specialises in
moral philosophy
Ethics is the philosophical study of moral phenomena. Also called moral philosophy, it investigates normative questions about what people ought to do or which behavior is morally right. Its main branches include normative ethics, applied et ...
. He is a professor at the
University of Reading
The University of Reading is a public research university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as the University Extension College, Reading, an extension college of Christchurch College, Oxford, and became University College, ...
and is best known for his work defending
rule consequentialism (often treated as being synonymous with
rule utilitarianism
Rule utilitarianism is a form of utilitarianism that says an action is right as it conforms to a rule that leads to the greatest good, or that "the rightness or wrongness of a particular action is a function of the correctness of the rule of which ...
).
His book ''Ideal Code, Real World'' received a number of favourable reviews from high-profile philosophers.
Derek Parfit
Derek Antony Parfit (; 11 December 1942 – 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 the lat ...
, for example, wrote: "This book seems to me the best statement and defence, so far, of one of the most important moral theories."
Education
Hooker initially studied philosophy at
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...
before pursuing his BPhil and
DPhil
A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, DPhil; or ) is a terminal degree that usually denotes the highest level of academic achievement in a given discipline and is awarded following a course of graduate study and original research. The name of the deg ...
at the
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...
from 1981 to 1986, where he was a member of
St Anne's College, and was taught and supervised by Parfit,
James Griffin, and
Richard Hare.
Hooker's rule-consequentialism
One of the most common objections to rule-consequentialism is that it is incoherent, because it is based on the consequentialist principle that we should be concerned with maximising the good, but then tells us not to act to maximise the good, but to follow rules (even in cases where we know that breaking the rule could produce better results).
Hooker avoids this objection by not basing his form of rule-consequentialism on the ideal of maximising the good. He writes:
...the best argument for rule-consequentialism is not that it derives from an overarching commitment to maximise the good. The best argument for rule-consequentialism is that it does a better job than its rivals of matching and tying together our moral convictions, as well as offering us help with our moral disagreements and uncertainties.[Brad Hooker, ''Ideal Code, Real World'', Oxford University Press, 2000, p. 101.]
Selected bibliography
Books
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::Reviewed in:
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Chapters in books
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Journal articles
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Pdf of individual article.
Podcast
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References
External links
Profile page: Brad HookerUniversity of Reading
Full text of doctoral thesis "Why should I be moral?"via Oxford Research Archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hooker, Brad
1957 births
20th-century English philosophers
21st-century English philosophers
Consequentialists
Academics of the University of Reading
Alumni of St Anne's College, Oxford
Princeton University alumni
Living people