L. W. Sumner - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Leonard Wayne Sumner is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

philosopher

Philosophy

Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...

notable for his work on normative

Normative ethics

Normative ethics is the study of ethical action. It is the branch of philosophical ethics that investigates the set of questions that arise when considering how one ought to act, morally speaking...

and applied

Applied ethics

Applied ethics is, in the words of Brenda Almond, co-founder of the Society for Applied Philosophy, "the philosophical examination, from a moral standpoint, of particular issues in private and public life that are matters of moral judgment"...

ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

, political philosophy

Political philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...

, and the philosophy of law.

Sumner is University Professor Emeritus of Law and Philosophy at the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

The University of Toronto is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, situated on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution of higher learning in Upper Canada...

. Since 2002, he has been a University Professor, the highest academic honour that the university accords its faculty. Sumner received his bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto

University of Toronto

in 1962 and his doctoral degree from Princeton University

Princeton University

Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....

in 1965, with a thesis supervised by Stuart Hampshire

Stuart Hampshire

Sir Stuart Newton Hampshire was an Oxford University philosopher, literary critic and university administrator. He was one of the antirationalist Oxford thinkers who gave a new direction to moral and political thought in the post-World War II era.Hampshire was educated at Repton School and at...

and Joel Feinberg

Joel Feinberg

Joel Feinberg was an American political and social philosopher. He is known for his work in the fields of ethics, action theory, philosophy of law, and political philosophy as well as individual rights and the authority of the state...

. In 1990 he was elected a fellow

Fellow

A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...

of the Royal Society of Canada

Royal Society of Canada

The Royal Society of Canada , may also operate under the more descriptive name RSC: The Academies of Arts, Humanities and Sciences of Canada , is the oldest association of scientists and scholars in Canada...

. In 2009 he was awarded the Molson Prize

Molson Prize

The Thomas Henry Pentland Molson Prize for the Arts is awarded by The Canada Council for the Arts. Two prizes are awarded annually to distinguished individuals. One prize is awarded in the arts, one in the social sciences and humanities...

by the Canada Council for the Arts.

Sumner is the author of four books, including Welfare, Happiness and Ethics.

Works

"A Matter of Life and Death", Noûs 10 (May, 1976), pp. 145-171
"Classical Utilitarianism and the Population Optimum", in R.I. Sikora and B. Barry (eds.), Obligations to Future Generations, Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1978, ISBN 0-87722-132-4, pp. 91–111.
Abortion and Moral Theory, Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981, ISBN 0-691-07262-0.
The Moral Foundations of Rights, New York: Oxford University Press, 1987, ISBN 0-19-824751-6.
Welfare, Happiness and Ethics, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, ISBN 0-19-824440-1.
"Something in between", in Roger Crisp and Brad Hooker (eds.), Well-being and Morality: Essays in Honour of James Griffin, Oxford : Clarendon Press ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-19-823584-4, pp. 1-19.
The Hateful and the Obscene: Studies in the Limits of Free Expression, Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8020-4239-2.

External links

Academic home page

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Works

Further reading

External links