Jonathan Wolff (FBA) is the Alfred Landecker Professor of Values and Public Policy at the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, and Governing Body Fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford.
He was formerly Blavatnik Chair in Public Policy at the School, and before that Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Arts and Humanities at UCL. He is a political philosopher who works on questions of inequality, disadvantage and social justice. He has a forthcoming book City of Equals (OUP 2024) co-authored with Avner de-Shalit.
His work in recent years has also turned to applied topics such as public safety, disability, gambling, and the regulation of recreational drugs, which he has discussed in his books Ethics and Public Policy: A Philosophical Inquiry (Routledge 2011, second edition 2019) and The Human Right to Health (Norton 2012). His An Introduction to Moral Philosophy and an associated edited volume, Readings in Moral Philosophy, were published by W. W. Norton in 2018, with new editions forthcoming in 2024. Earlier works include Disadvantage (OUP 2007), with Avner de-Shalit; An Introduction to Political Philosophy (OUP, 1996, fourth edition 2023); Why Read Marx Today? (OUP 2002); and Robert Nozick (Polity 1991), together with several edited collections. His recent work has also discussed social equality, poverty, and social exclusion, as well as methodology in political philosophy. He is now working on questions of belonging, nationalism, and civil society.
He has had a long-standing interest in health and health promotion, including questions of justice in health care resource allocation, the social determinants of health, and incentives and health behaviour. He has been a member of the Nuffield Council of Bioethics, the Academy of Medical Science working party on Drug Futures, the Gambling Review Body and the Homicide Review Group. He has been an external member of the Board of Science of the British Medical Association, and a Trustee of the Responsible Gambling Trust, for whom he chaired their research committee. He Co-Chaired the WHO Working Group on the Ethics and Governance of the Access to COVID Tools-Accelerator, and continues to work with the WHO. For many years he wrote a regular column on higher education for The Guardian. He was elected to the British Academy in 2023, and is the in-coming President of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.
He takes over from Baroness Onora O’Neill. Professor Wolff will give his Presidential Address in the Spring 2024.