Henry S Richardson

Henry S. Richardson earned graduate degrees in law and in public policy at Harvard before getting his Ph.D. there (under John Rawls) in 1986. Dr. Richardson’s work centers on practical reasoning in all of its many guises: in the reasoning of individuals about their aims, in the democratic reasoning of citizens about public policy, and in our moral reasoning. Dr. Richardson’s initial work concerned the nature of individual reasoning. His book, Practical Reasoning About Final Ends (Cambridge University Press, 1994), shows how it is possible for individuals to deliberate rationally about ends, even final or ultimate ends, establishing new ones through a process of reasoning. Dr. Richardson has held research fellowships sponsored by Georgetown University, the Program in Ethics and the Professions at Harvard University, the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Richardson is the editor of Ethics: An International Journal of Social, Political, and Legal Philosophy. In 2010, he was appointed by the Director General of UNESCO to a four-year term as a member of the World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology (COMEST). Dr. Richardson is married to Mary E. Challinor and has two children. Though generally he prefers the later Wittgenstein to the earlier, in his leisure time he is more drawn to the Tractarian ideal of frictionless gliding along sharp edges, which, in the actual world, only ice skating adequately approximates. Ph.D. (1986) Harvard University, Philosophy J.D. (1981) Harvard Law School, M.P.P. (1981) Kennedy School of Government, B.A. (1977) Harvard University,