Exeter College Supernumerary Fellow publishes new book on Ethics, Law and Human Nature

Charles Foster, Supernumerary Fellow at Exeter College, has released his latest new book, Ethics, Law and the Business of Being Human, published by Anthem Press this September. 

In this collection of essays, Professor Foster challenges the boundaries between philosophy, law and the lived human experience. Drawing inspiration from a lunchtime exchange between C.S. Lewis and Owen Barfield, where Barfield remarked that for Plato, philosophy “was a way” rather than a subject, Professor Foster argues that contemporary academia has lost sight of this deeper purpose. Philosophy and law, he writes, are now treated as intellectual exercises confined to office hours, rather than as tools for living well in a complex world. 

Professor Foster brings a wide lens to bear on some of today’s most urgent and enduring questions. The book traverses a remarkable array of topics, including identity, freedom, disability, genetics, abortion, artificial intelligence, environmental ethics and pandemic response. It also offers searing reflections on the Academy itself, which Professor Foster critiques for its insularity, timidity and failure to engage meaningfully with public life. 

Throughout, he insists that lawyers and philosophers cannot afford to speak past each other. Their conversations, he argues, are central to understanding what it means to be human and to shaping a society that reflects that understanding. 

Ethics, Law and the Business of Being Human is available now from Anthem Press. For readers interested in the intersections of ethics, law and human identity, this is an urgent and compelling contribution.