Draft:Richard Yetter Chappell
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Richard Yetter Chappell | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Education | |
| Education |
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| Philosophical work | |
| Era | 21st-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Analytic |
| Institutions |
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| Main interests | Normative ethics, meta-ethics, applied ethics, consequentialism |
| Notable ideas | Fittingness as normative primitive, beneficence, effective altruism |
Richard Yetter Chappell is a New Zealand-born American philosopher and Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami. He is known for his work in normative ethics, metaethics, and moral theory, particularly his contributions to consequentialist philosophy and the effective altruism movement.
Early life and education
[edit]Chappell completed his undergraduate education at the University of Canterbury, earning a B.A. in 2005.[1] He then pursued an Honours degree at the Australian National University, graduating with first-class honours in 2006 with a thesis titled "Modal Rationalism" under the supervision of David Chalmers.[1] He received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton University in 2012, where his dissertation "Fitting Consequentialism" was supervised by Michael Smith and Philip Pettit.[1]
Academic career
[edit]After completing his doctorate, Chappell held a postdoctoral position in Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania (2012–2013).[1] He then served as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University (2013–2014) before moving to the University of York in the United Kingdom, where he was a Lecturer in Philosophy from 2014 to 2018.[1]
In 2019, Chappell joined the University of Miami as Assistant Professor of Philosophy, where he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2022.[1][2] His areas of specialization include normative ethics, metaethics, and bioethics and public policy.[1]
Philosophical work
[edit]Chappell's philosophical research focuses on fundamental questions in moral philosophy, particularly what he terms the "big questions": what is fundamentally worth caring about, what should we do about it, and what concepts and methods should philosophers use to make progress on these questions.[2] He advocates for a position he calls "beneficentrism," which emphasizes the fundamental importance of promoting overall well-being while respecting commonsense moral constraints.[2][3]
His work challenges traditional approaches to ethical theory, arguing that philosophers have overemphasized deontic questions (about what is right or wrong) at the expense of what he calls "telic questions" (about what is worth aiming at—good or valuable).[2] He contends that telic questions are more likely to generate deep philosophical understanding and are more intrinsically significant.[2]
Publications
[edit]Books
[edit]Chappell is the author of three books:
- Parfit's Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2021)[4]
- An Introduction to Utilitarianism: From Theory to Practice (Hackett, 2024, co-authored with Darius Meissner and William MacAskill)[1]
- Questioning Beneficence: Four Philosophers on Effective Altruism and Doing Good (Routledge, 2024, co-authored with Samuel Arnold, Jason Brennan, and Ryan Davis)[1]
Academic articles
[edit]Chappell has published over twenty peer-reviewed articles in leading philosophy journals, including Noûs, Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, and the Australasian Journal of Philosophy.[2] Notable papers include "Fittingness: The Sole Normative Primitive" (2012), "Value Receptacles" (2015), "Willpower Satisficing" (2019), and "The Right Wrong-Makers" (2021).[1]
Influence on other philosophers
[edit]Chappell’s work has been widely cited and praised by other philosophers:
- Peter Singer has publicly praised Chappell’s contributions to moral philosophy, stating: "As a younger philosopher … I greatly admire Richard Chappell. He's somebody who has a fairly popular substack blog now and … does a lot of interesting work."[5] Singer also co-authored an opinion piece with Chappell in The Washington Post on the ethics of pandemic experiments, calling for careful use of human volunteers in COVID-19 research.[6]
- Katarzyna de Lazari-Radek and Singer thanked Chappell for his feedback in the preface to Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction (2017), writing: "We are especially grateful to Richard Yetter Chappell … for reading the manuscript and giving us valuable comments."[7]
- Michael Ridge described Chappell’s paper "Value Receptacles" as an "excellent paper," highlighting its significance in debates on value theory.[8]
- Derek Parfit characterized Chappell’s critique of his reply to Sharon Street’s evolutionary debunking argument as "subtle and thought-provoking" in On What Matters.[9]
- Ben Bramble thanked Chappell for his "very helpful comments" in the acknowledgements of Pandemic Ethics (2020).[10]
- Michael Plant acknowledged Chappell for providing "valuable feedback" in his Oxford doctoral dissertation on happiness and population ethics (2019).[11]
- Toby Ord endorsed Chappell’s book Parfit’s Ethics on its promotional materials, writing: "A clear and accessible guide to the core of Parfit's monumental contributions to ethics. Chappell is a sure-footed guide through this difficult and important terrain."[12]
- Christopher Woodard, in the acknowledgements of his book Taking Utilitarianism Seriously (Oxford University Press, 2019), thanked Chappell for his "invaluable comments and suggestions," highlighting Chappell’s role in shaping parts of the manuscript.[13]
Public philosophy and outreach
[edit]Chappell is deeply committed to public philosophy and making philosophical insights accessible to broader audiences. He serves as the lead editor of the open-access educational resource An Introduction to Utilitarianism (utilitarianism.net)[2] and writes the philosophy blog "Good Thoughts," which has over 5,000 subscribers.[2][3] From 2004 to 2022, he maintained the academic blog "Philosophy, et cetera," which received over 5 million page views and was ranked as one of the most influential philosophy websites used in training large language models.[1]
Awards and recognition
[edit]Chappell has received numerous grants and fellowships, including multiple University of Miami Fellowships in the Arts & Humanities, a Forethought Foundation fellowship, and grants from Longview Philanthropy.[1] In 2013, he won the Young Ethicist Prize from the Rocky Mountain Ethics Congress, and in 2024, he received the runner-up prize from AI Impacts for his essay "Philosophy's Digital Future."[1]
Personal philosophy
[edit]In interviews, Chappell describes philosophy as "the disciplined exploration of logical space" and emphasizes the importance of being guided by reason rather than mere convention or intuition.[3] He draws inspiration from Socrates, particularly the Socratic commitment to rational inquiry and challenging assumptions.[3] His approach to philosophy involves collaborative engagement with students and the public through teaching, blogging, and accessible writing.[3]
References
[edit]- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Richard Yetter Chappell - Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Retrieved 2024-06-26.
- ^ a b c d e f g h "Richard Yetter Chappell". Retrieved 2024-06-26.
- ^ a b c d e Celine Le Boeuf (2024). "Why Philosophy? Richard Yetter Chappell". Retrieved 2024-06-26.
- ^ Chappell, Richard Yetter (2021). Parfit's Ethics. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9781108834513.
- ^ Tyler Cowen (7 June 2023). "Conversations with Tyler". Tyler Cowen podcast. Retrieved 2024-06-26.
- ^ Chappell, Richard Yetter; Singer, Peter (27 April 2020). "Pandemic Ethics: The case for experiments on human volunteers". The Washington Post.
- ^ Singer, Peter; de Lazari-Radek, Katarzyna (2017). Utilitarianism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press.
- ^ Ridge, Michael (2016). "Review of Value Receptacles". Utilitas. 28 (4): 486–490.
- ^ Parfit, Derek. On What Matters. p. 285.
- ^ Bramble, Ben (2020). Pandemic Ethics. Routledge.
- ^ Plant, Michael (2019). Doing Good Badly? (Thesis). University of Oxford.
- ^ Toby Ord (2021). "Parfit's Ethics – Cambridge University Press". Cambridge University Press. Retrieved 2025-09-08.
- ^ Woodard, Christopher (2019). Taking Utilitarianism Seriously. Oxford University Press.
External links
[edit]- Personal website
- Good Thoughts blog
- An Introduction to Utilitarianism
- University of Miami faculty page