Staff

Professor Geoffrey Scarre, BA, MA, PhD

Professor in the Department of Philosophy

Member in the Institute of Medieval and Early Modern Studies

Biography

I am a Professor at Durham Philosophy Department where I specialise in a broad range of issues concerning moral philosophy. I have an abiding interest in utilitarianism and the philosophy of John Stuart Mill and have also written on the subject of death which I considered from both an historical point of view and across a broad spectrum of different thinkers.

My most recent research has focussed on the notion of courage and also on the ethics of archaeology. As such, I have founded and am the Co-Director of the Durham University Centre for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage. This is an inter-disciplinary body of academics from Durham - predominantly from Philosophy and Archaeology - aiming to develop rigorous and systematic analysis of the ethically complex and, at times, politically charged, issue of cultural heritage.

Undergraduate Teaching

Postgraduate Teaching

Current Issues In Ethics

Administrative Duties

Tutor-Manager
I do not keep office hours as such but students are welcome to call on me during working hours or to email me for an appointment.

Research Groups

Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics

Research Interests

Death
Ethics of Archaeology
Evil
Forgiveness
John Stuart Mill
Moral responsibility
Utilitarianism

Teaching Areas

Applied Ethics
Moral Theory

Selected Publications

1: Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). On taking back forgiveness. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19(4): 931-944.
2: Scarre, Geoffrey (2014). Virtuous condonation. Philosophical Papers 43(4): 405-428.
3: Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). Forgiveness and Identification. Philosophia 44(4): 1021-1028.
4: Scarre, Geoffrey (2017). Is it possible to be better off dead?. In Ethics at the end of life. Davis, John K. New York: Routledge. 11-28.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Aging. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2010). On Courage. Routledge.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2007). Death. Stocksfield: Acumen.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2007). Mill's on Liberty: a reader's guide. London, New York: Continuum.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2004). After evil: responding to wrongdoing. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Scarre, Geoffrey (1996). Utilitarianism. London: Routledge.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). The aging of people and of things. In The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Aging. Scarre, Geoffrey London: Palgrave Macmillan. 87-100.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2014). The ethics of digging. In Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice. Sandis, Constantine Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. 117-127.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2013). 'Sapient trouble-tombs'?: Archaeologists' moral obligations to the dead. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial. Tarlow, Sarah & Nillson Stutz, Liv Oxford University Press. 665-676.
Scarre, G.F. (2013). The vulnerability of the dead. In The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death. New Essays. Taylor, James Stacey Oxford: Oxford University Press. 171-187.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2010). Apologising for historical injustices. In The Ethics of Forgiveness. Fricke, C. Routledge. 166-178.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2010). Evil. In The Routledge Companion to Ethics. Skorupski, John London: Routledge. 584-595.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2009). Dying and philosophy. In The Study of Dying: From Autonomy to Transformation. Kellehear, A. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 147-162.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2009). The repatriation of human remains. In The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation. Young, J. & Brunk, C. Blackwell. 72-92.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2009). Wrong that is right? The paradox of the 'Felix culpa'. In The Positive Functions of Evil. Tabensky, P. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 14-27.
Geoffrey Scarre & Robin Coningham (2013). Appropriating the past. Cambridge University Press.
Scarre, Chris & Scarre, Geoffrey (2006). The ethics of archaeology: philosophical perspectives on archaeological practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Scarre, Geoffrey. & Garrard, E. (2003). Moral philosophy and the Holocaust. Aldershot: Ashgate.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2017). ‘The compages, the bonds and rivets of the race’ W. E. Gladstone on the keeping of books. Library and Information History 33(3): 182-194.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2017). The ‘constitutive thought’ of regret. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 25(5): 569-585.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). Fallible infallibility? Gladstone's anti-Vatican pamphlets in the light of Mill's On Liberty. Victorian Literature and Culture 44(02): 223-237.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2014). Lest we forget: how and why we should remember the Great War. Ethical Perspectives 21(3): 321-344.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2013). Privacy and the Dead. Philosophy in the Contemporary World 19(1): 1-16.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2013). Speaking of the dead: a postscript. Mortality 18(3): 313-318.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2013). The continence of virtue. Philosophical Investigations 36(1): 1-19.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2012). Can there be a good death?. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18(5): 1082-1086.
Scarre, G.F. (2012). Evil collectives. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 36(1): 74-92.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2012). Speaking of the dead. Mortality 17(1): 36-50.
Scarre, Geoffrey (2011). Political reconciliation, forgiveness and grace. Journal of Christian Ethics 24(2): 171-182.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2009). The banality of good?. Journal of moral philosophy 6(4): 499-519
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2006). Corrective justice and reputation. Journal of moral philosophy 3(3): 305-319.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2005). Excusing the inexcusable? Moral responsibility and ideologically-motivated wrongdoing. Journal of social philosophy 36(4): 457-472.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2003). Archaeology and respect for the dead. Journal of applied philosophy 20(3): 237–249.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2003). Corporal punishment. Ethical theory & moral practice 6(3): 295-316.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (2001). On caring about one's posthumous reputation. American philosophical quarterly 38(2): 209-219.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (1998). Interpreting the categorical imperative. British journal for the history of philosophy 6(2): 223-236.
Scarre, Geoffrey. (1998). Understanding the moral phenomenology of the Third Reich. Ethical theory and moral practice 1(4): 423-445.