Dr Piers Benn
philosopher, author and lecturer

Dr Piers Benn teaches philosophical ethics at Fordham University London Centre and the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology in Cambridge. He has recently taught at the University of Roehampton and Heythrop College, University of London.

Previously he held lectureships in philosophy at the universities of St Andrews and Leeds, followed by medical ethics at Imperial College London and King’s College London. His interests include ethics, philosophy of religion and philosophical issues in the culture wars, especially free enquiry and speech.

During the 1990s, he organised seminars for students in Poland and the Czech Republic, in collaboration with host institutions struggling to rebuild education after the communist period. He writes for both academic and wider audiences and has made several appearances on the British media, including as a news reviewer for Sky News and GB News. He has contributed to Cambridge University’s free-speech training initiative.

He is an author of several publications, and his latest book, Intellectual Freedom and the Culture Wars, was published by Palgrave in 2020. He is author of a forthcoming essay on freedom of thought, for the AoI’s Letters on Liberty series, and a forthcoming essay on the ethics of comedy for the journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Follow Piers on Twitter @PiersBenn

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