Richard Paul Hamilton

I completed my PhD in 2004 at Birkbeck College, University of London. It was on love. I've been in Australia since then.
My major interests are in the areas of philosophy traditionally defined as 'moral philosophy' which in laypersons' terms is broadly the areas which touch on what it means to be human and how we relate to other humans and to the rest of nature. I am particularly interested in scientific attempts to understand the human condition but am deeply sceptical towards most recent attempts to do so, particularly evolutionary psychology.
I am currently working on a book length project in virtue ethics which looks at the possibility of naturalism, that is, a biologically informed but non-reductive ethics and to do so I draw on recent work in philosophy of biology. I broadly share John Dupre's 'promiscuous realism' and 'minimal compositional physicalism' and defend pluralism of enquiry.
I am also interested in professional and applied ethics and am currently developing a theory provisionally entitled 'the suitably qualified agent theory of right action' which is a virtue ethical contribution to role ethics.