James Rachels

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James Rachels (1941-2003) was one of the leading philosophers of the 20th century. His works are especially noted for their accessibility.

[edit] Biography

James Rachels, the distinguished American moral philosopher, was born in Columbus, Georgia, in 1941 and graduated from Mercer University in 1962. He received his Ph.D. in 1967 from the University of North Carolina, 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. 1971 saw the publication of his groundbreaking anthology Moral Problems, which ignited the movement away from teaching meta-ethics in American colleges to teaching concrete practical issues. Moral Problems sold 100,000 copies over three editions. In 1975, Rachels wrote “Active and Passive Euthanasia,” arguing that the distinction so important in the law between killing and letting die has no rational basis. Originally appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, this essay has been reprinted 300 times and is a staple of undergraduate education. "The End of Life" (1986), a moral treatise on life and death, broadened and deepened these ideas. Created from Animals (1990) made the case that a Darwinian world-view has widespread philosophical implications, including drastic implications for our treatment of nonhuman animals. Can Ethics Provide Answers? (1997) was Rachels’ first collection of papers. His second, The Legacy of Socrates, is now forthcoming from Columbia University Press. Rachels' best-known work is The Elements of Moral Philosophy. Now in its fifth edition, this introduction to ethics has sold over 300,000 copies and is the best-selling textbook in all of philosophy. Shortly before dying of cancer in 2003, Rachels wrote Problems From Philosophy, a fascinating and readable introduction to the subject.

Over his career, James Rachels wrote 6 books and 85 essays, edited 7 books and gave about 275 professional lectures. His work has been translated into Dutch, Italian, Japanese, Indonesian, and Serbo-Croatian. Rachels is widely admired as a stylist; his essays and books are remarkably free of jargon and clutter, while adopting a tone of sensible humanity. Rachels has argued for moral vegetarianism and animal rights, preferential quotas, the humanitarian use of euthanasia, and the idea that parents should give as much fundamental moral consideration to other people’s children as they do to their own. Later in his career Rachels realized that a lifetime of analyzing 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.