Professor Alan Thomas
Professor

Profile

Biography

I began my professional career in Philosophy as a lecturer at King’s College, London, between 1993 and 1998. Following this I moved to the University of Kent to take a position as senior lecturer there. In 2007 I was a visiting scholar at the University of British Columbia and in 2010 I held the position of Fellow of the Murphy Institute at Tulane University. Between 2010 and 2016 I was Professor of Ethics at Tilburg University. During that time I also held a visiting fellowship at the Australian National University (2015) and a visiting research professor position at St. Louis University (also 2015). In 2016 I came to York to be Professor of Philosophy and Head of Department.

Research

Overview

My research interests are in political philosophy; political economy; moral philosophy; and social epistemology.

Projects

My main research interests are the theory of justice, inequality, republicanism and central topics in ethics.

• I have a defended a liberal-republican account of a just society in Republic of Equals: Pre-distribution and Property-Owning Democracy (OUP 2017).
• I am currently working on a research project entitled ‘The Moral Psychology of Inequality’. This is funded by the John Templeton Foundation via St. Louis University and the other team members are Alfred Archer and Bart Engelen (Tilburg University).
• From 2016–17 I will also be participating in the John Templeton Foundation project, funded via Wake Forest University, on ‘Morally Exceptional Individuals’ with Archer, Engelen, and Niels van de Ven (Psychology, Tilburg University).
• My other project in ethics is a research monograph entitled Ethics in the First Person: Moral Particularism and Its Consequences.

External activities

Memberships

• External examiner for the Open University and the University of London
• External examiner for advanced research degrees
• Advisor on senior appointments
• REF consultant (“critical friend”).

Publications

Selected publications