Philippa Foot

Synonyms

Author; Ethics; Philosopher

Definitions

Philippa Foot was a British author and philosopher who is best known for her work in ethics, particularly her work developing the trolley problem. She died on her 90th birthday on October 3, 2010.

Introduction

Philippa Foot (née Bosanquet) was a British philosopher best known for her work on morality and ethics (Grimes 2010). She earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy, politics, and economics at Somerville College in Oxford, England, in 1942 and a Master’s degree from the same institution in 1946. She worked as a researcher at the Royal Institute of International Affairs during the Second World War and began lecturing at Somerville College in 1947 (Grimes 2010). She became the first philosophy tutorial fellow at Somerville College in 1949 and vice-principal in 1967, a post which she later abandoned so that she could take up a variety of visiting professorships in the United States of America (O’Grady 2010). She became a professor of...