Rate My Professor Charles Pigden

Professor Charles Pigden is Professor of Philosophy in the Philosophy Programme at the University of Otago. He holds a BA (Hons) from King's College, Cambridge (1979), an MA from Cambridge (1983), and a PhD from La Trobe University (1985). His academic career includes a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Otago in 1986, a temporary lectureship at Massey University from 1987 to 1988, and positions at Otago starting as lecturer in 1988, progressing to senior lecturer, associate professor from 2011 to 2022, and full professor from 2023. He has served as Director of the PPE Programme and was elected Academic Staff Representative on the University Council in 2018. Pigden delivered his Inaugural Professorial Lecture in August 2023.

Pigden's research interests encompass metaethics, including the is-ought gap, error theory, and the open question argument; David Hume's views on motivation, virtue, and reason's relation to passions; Bertrand Russell's moral philosophy; the epistemology and rationality of conspiracy theories; philosophical logic; and early modern ethics. He has edited three volumes: Russell on Ethics (Routledge, 1999), Hume on Motivation and Virtue (Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), and Hume on Is and Ought (Palgrave Macmillan, 2010). Key publications include 'Logic and the Autonomy of Ethics' (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 1989), 'Popper Revisited, or What is Wrong With Conspiracy Theories?' (Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 1995), 'Identifying Goodness' (Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2012), 'Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom' (Episteme, 2007), and 'Conspiracy Theories and the Conventional Wisdom Revisited' (in Secrets and Conspiracies, 2015). He has authored entries for the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy ('Russell’s Moral Philosophy', 2014) and the International Encyclopedia of Ethics ('The Is-Ought Gap', 2013; 'Bertrand Russell', 2013). Pigden teaches courses such as PHIL 227 Morals and Politics: Hobbes to Hume, PHIL 335/406 Why Be Moral?, PHIL 314/414 Themes From Hume, and PHPE 201 Political Economy. His supervision interests include meta-ethics, political philosophy, history of analytic philosophy, philosophy and literature, conspiracy theories, philosophical logic, and ethics in the early modern period.