Dr Jack Wearing

Research and Teaching

My research is focused primarily on the concept of humanity in Kantian and Post-Kantian Philosophy. My doctoral thesis, titled ‘Ethics and Humanity in (Post-)Kantian Philosophy’, brought together work in ethics, political philosophy, and history of philosophy, examining the normative implications of the concept of ‘the human’ in the work of four philosophers from apparently disparate traditions: Immanuel Kant, Martin Heidegger, Judith Butler, and Ludwig Wittgenstein. Bringing these thinkers into productive dialogue, I argued that any plausible form of humanism must oppose hierarchies of moral standing among human beings while avoiding forms of anthropocentrism that fail to acknowledge our obligations toward non-human animals. 

I am currently working on several papers on related themes, including a critical analysis of Heidegger’s conception of the inhuman, a critique of Peter Singer’s views on the moral status of human beings with cognitive disabilities, and an article on the relationship between objectification and what Peter Strawson has called the ‘objective attitude’. 

I offer tutorials in General and Moral Philosophy, as well as a range of finals papers, including 109. Aesthetics, 112. The Philosophy of Kant, 113. Post-Kantian Philosophy (Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Heidegger, and Sartre), 129. The Philosophy of Wittgenstein, and 198. Feminist Theory.