James Rachels
| James Rachels | |
|---|---|
| Born | 30 May 1941 Columbus, Georgia, United States of America |
| Died | 5 September 2003 (aged 62) Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America |
| Era | Contemporary philosophy |
| Region | Western Philosophy |
| School | Analytic philosophy |
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Main interests
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Ethics, bioethics, animal rights |
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Influences
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James Rachels (May 30, 1941 – September 5, 2003) was an American philosopher who specialized in ethics and animal rights.
Rachels was born in Columbus, Georgia, and graduated from Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, studying under Professors W. D. Falk and E. M. Adams. He taught at the University of Richmond, New York University, the University of Miami, Duke University and the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he spent the last twenty-six years of his career. He married Carol Williams in 1962, and they had two sons, David and Stuart. He died of cancer in 2003 in Birmingham, Alabama.
Over the course of his career, Rachels wrote 6 books and 85 essays, edited 7 books and gave some 275 professional lectures. He argued for moral vegetarianism and animal rights, affirmative action, euthanasia, and the idea that parents should give as much fundamental moral consideration to another's children as they do to their own. Later in his career, Rachels realized that a lifetime of analysing specific moral issues had led him to adopt the general ethic of utilitarianism, according to which actions are assessed by their effects on both human and nonhuman happiness.
Rachels' best-known work is The Elements of Moral Philosophy. It went to its sixth edition in 2009, having been revised by Rachels' son, Stuart Rachels. Among the subjects covered are ethical and simple subjectivism, emotivism, as well as ethical and psychological egoism. The text uses real-world examples to highlight points regarding complicated philosophical principles. Rachels had a history of using such examples. The publication in 1971 of his anthology, Moral Problems, marked a shift from teaching meta-ethics in American colleges to teaching concrete practical issues.Moral Problems sold 100,000 copies over three editions.
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