Benedict Smith

Biography

Benedict Smith was an undergraduate at the University of Glasgow and then a postgraduate at the University of Warwick. He had been a member of staff in Durham since 2005 with a brief period of teaching back at Warwick. He have previously lectured and tutored on a variety of modules and was Research Fellow on a 3-year AHRC/DFG project: 'Emotional Experience in Depression: A Philosophical Study’.

Research Interest

My current research focuses on a number of issues in moral philosophy, broadly construed. For example, I have recently written articles on the nature of moral experience, motivation, trust, and the role of concepts in our moral thought and practice. My other interests include naturalism, normativity and judgement, the work of Hume and Wittgenstein, and topics in epistemology and the philosophy of mind and psychiatry. A recent major project was completing a book on moral particularism: Particularism and the Space of Moral Reasons (Palgrave Macmillan) and I am currently in the process of planning a second book on moral experience. Click here for details of 2 workshops on moral experience that I, with my colleagues Dr. Simon James and Prof. Matthew Ratcliffe, organized during the summer 2008.