Rate My Professor Richard Chappell

Richard Chappell is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami, having joined as Assistant Professor in January 2019 and been promoted in 2022. He earned his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Princeton University in 2012, with a dissertation titled "Fitting Consequentialism" advised by Michael Smith and Philip Pettit. His earlier degrees include a B.A. (Hons) first class from the Australian National University in 2006, with an honors thesis on "Modal Rationalism" advised by David Chalmers, and a B.A. from the University of Canterbury in 2005. Prior to Miami, Chappell held positions as Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of York from 2014 to 2018, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Bowling Green State University from 2013 to 2014, and Postdoctoral Researcher in Medical Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania from 2012 to 2013.

Chappell's primary research interests are in consequentialism and non-naturalist normative realism, alongside secondary interests in applied ethics—such as the harm of death, duties of beneficence, resource allocation, and effective altruism—and epistemology, including peer disagreement and higher-order evidence. He has authored books including Parfit’s Ethics (Cambridge University Press, 2021), An Introduction to Utilitarianism: From Theory to Practice (co-authored with Darius Meissner and William MacAskill, Hackett Publishing, 2024), and Questioning Beneficence: Four Philosophers on Effective Altruism and Doing Good (co-authored with Samuel Arnold, Jason Brennan, and Ryan Davis, Routledge, 2024). Selected articles feature "Willpower Satisficing" (Noûs, 2019), "The Right Wrong-Makers" (Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 2021), "Value Receptacles" (Noûs, 2015), "Virtue and Salience" (co-authored with Helen Yetter-Chappell, Australasian Journal of Philosophy, 2016), and "Pandemic Ethics: The Case for Risky Research" (co-authored with Peter Singer, Research Ethics, 2020). His honors include multiple University of Miami Fellowships in the Arts and Humanities (2020–2025), the Rocky Mountain Ethics Young Ethicist Prize (2013), Forethought Foundation fellowship (2021–2022), Longview Philanthropy grant (2022–2023), and Laurance S. Rockefeller Graduate Prize Fellowship at Princeton (2010). Chappell serves on the editorial committee of Utilitas and as category editor for Consequentialism at PhilPapers.org.