Jonathan Francis Bennett (17 February 1930 – 31 March 2024) was a philosopher of
language and
metaphysics, specialist of
Kant's philosophy and a historian of
early modern philosophy. He had New Zealand citizenship by birth and had since acquired UK and Canadian citizenship.
Life and education
Jonathan Bennett was born in
Greymouth, New Zealand to Francis Oswald Bennett and Pearl Allan Brash Bennett.[1] His father was a doctor and his mother a homemaker. He read philosophy at the
University of Canterbury (formerly Canterbury University College)[2] and was awarded his MA there in 1953.[3] He then went to the
University of Oxford where he was a member of
Magdalen College, Oxford. He obtained his
BPhil in 1955.
In 1980, he was the Tanner Lecturer at
Brasenose College of the
University of Oxford.[6] His lectures were refined and published in his 1995 book The Act Itself. In this work he argues that letting someone die is as immoral as killing someone. This also applies to other harms that one commits or fails to prevent. This view has been widely discussed, for example by
Judith Jarvis Thomson.[7]
In 1992, he was the
John Locke Lecturer at the University of Oxford, giving lectures on 'Judging Behaviour: Analysis in Moral Theory'.[8]
1988. 'Thoughtful Brutes', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Association, 62 pp. 197–210.
1993. 'Negation and Abstention: Two theories of Allowing', Ethics, 104, pp. 75–96.
References
^Hull, Richard (2013). "Jonathan Francis Bennett". The American Philosophical Association Centennial Series. Presidential Addresses of The American Philosophical Association 1981–1990. 10: 515–518.
doi:
10.5840/apapa2013172.
^Hull, Richard (2013). "Jonathan Francis Bennett". The American Philosophical Association Centennial Series. Presidential Addresses of The American Philosophical Association 1981–1990. 10: 515.
doi:
10.5840/apapa2013172.
^Levey, Samuel (2005). "Bennett, Jonathan Francis (1930-)". In Brown, Stuart (ed.). Dictionary of Twentieth Century British Philosophers. Thoemmes Press. p. 78.
ISBN184371096X.
^Cover, J.A.; Kulstad, Mark, eds. (1990). Central themes in early modern philosophy : essays presented to Jonathan Bennett. Indianapolis: Hackett.
ISBN0872201090.
^Bennett, Jonathan.
"Early Modern Texts". earlymoderntexts.com. Retrieved 5 April 2024.
Early Modern Texts. Translations by Bennett of philosophical classics of the English language into contemporary English. Also works in Latin, French and German.