| 1 | Name: | Dr. Julia Annas | |
| Institution: | University of Arizona | ||
| Year Elected: | 2013 | ||
| Class: | 4. Humanities | ||
| Subdivision: | 406. Linguistics | ||
| Residency: | Resident | ||
| Living? : | Living | ||
| Birth Date: | 1946 | ||
Julia Annas is known for her work in ancient ethics and contemporary ethics, especially in the area of virtue ethics, where renewed interest in ancient ethics has stimulated many new developments. She studied the B.A. Literae Humaniores course at Oxford University (Greek and Latin language, literature, history and philosophy) and then received her Ph. D from Harvard University. She returned to Oxford and taught as a Lecturer and then Tutorial Fellow at St Hugh’s College for fifteen years, before becoming Professor (since 1995 Regents Professor) of Philosophy at the University of Arizona. She was the founding editor of Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy and has been joint editor for many years of the Oxford Aristotle monographs series. She has been a Senior Fellow of the Center for Hellenic Studies, President of the Pacific Division of the American Philosophical Association and a Getty Scholar. She is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Science, an Honorary Fellow of St Hugh’s College, Oxford and an Honorary Doctor of the University of Uppsala. She has published many books and articles over a wide range of topics in ancient philosophy, with increasing focus on the areas of epistemology and ethics. Her 1993 The Morality of Happiness explored the structure of ancient ethical theories, starting from Aristotle and establishing the general outline of a kind of theory in which virtue and happiness are the central concepts (this is now often called eudaimonist virtue theory). Her 1999 Platonic Ethics Old and New carried the project backwards, looking at ethics in Plato, and forwards, to the more academic ethics of later Platonists. In the last two decades her work has integrated historical study of ancient texts and engagement with the resurgent field of virtue ethics. Her 2011 Intelligent Virtue presents an outline of a contemporary theory in which virtue and happiness are central, which can meet several different philosophical objections and serve as a promising model of ethical theory. She continues to work mainly on contemporary and historical theories of virtue and happiness. Julia Annas was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society in 2013. | |||