Andrew Williams

Andrew Williams

Universitat Pompeu Fabra

Humanities

Andrew Williams read Philosophy, Politics and Economics at the University of Oxford and was a graduate student at Nuffield College, Oxford and Harvard University. He then became a Junior Research Fellow at Jesus College, Oxford, and later taught at York, Reading and Warwick, where he was a Professor of Philosophy before joining ICREA in October 2009. He has also been a visiting professor in the Program in Ethics, Politics and Economics at Yale University and the Department of Philosophy at Harvard, and a Faculty Fellow in Ethics at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. His work has been published in such journals as Ethics, Economics and Philosophy, Philosophical Quarterly, Philosophy & Public Affairs, and Utilitas, and he is Editor of Politics, Philosophy & Economics.


Research interests

My interests lie in moral and political philosophy and practical rationality, as well as intersecting areas in economics and political science. My research focusses in particular on questions about distributive justice, including ones arising across states and generations. I explore how egalitarian distributive principles  should guide the design of social institutions that shape the prospects of children, parents, the elderly, and future generations. My most recent work examines how we should deal with the needs of the elderly and with variations in lifespan as well as the role that demographic factors should play in our response to climate change.

Selected publications

Casal P Williams A 2019, ‘Human iPSC-Chimera Xenotransplantation and the Non-Identity Problem’, Journal of Clinical Medicine 8, 1, 95.


Selected research activities

“Fertility and Collective Responsibility”, Conference on Collective Responsibility, Katmandu University, Nepal, March 13, 2019

“Comment on Budolfson and Spears on Population, Well-Being, and Animals”, Conference on Population, Public Policy, and Climate Change, Tulane University, March 15, 2019

“Kolodny on Equality and Institutions”, New Directions in Social Justice Theorizing, Department of Philosophy, University of California, San Diego, May 26, 2019

“Age, Time, and the Priority View”, Society for Applied Philosophy Annual Conference, Cardiff University, June 29, 2019

“Demography, Justice, and Climate Change”, Justice and Climate Change Forum, Universidad Pontificia Javeriana de Bogotá, August 5, 2019

“Instrumental and Non-Instrumental Arguments for Equality” (co-presented with Paula Casal), Faculty of Philosophy, Universidad Pontificia Javeriana de Bogotá, August 8, 2019

“The Impact of Procreation on Climate Change “, Conference on Climate Change, EAFIT University, Medellin, August 15, 2019

“Aging as Equals: Right or Responsibility?”, Conference on Justice, Inequality and Old Age, University of Salzburg, November 28, 2019

Organizer of Conference on Population, Public Policy, and Climate Change, Tulane University, March 15, 2019

Supervisor of three UPF Masters theses: A Libertarian Defense of Gun Control; A Case for Research on Geoengineering; and The Lessons of Historical Materialism for Intergenerational Justice