Faculty of Philosophy


Hallvard Lillehammer


Portrait of Hallvard Lillehammer

Hallvard Lillehammer is a University Senior Lecturer in Philosophy and the Sidgwick Lecturer. He was educated at University College London and Peterhouse Cambridge. Before joining the Faculty he was a Lecturer at Reading University and a Jacobsen Research Fellow at King's College London. From 2000 to 2009 he was Fellow and Director of Studies at King's College Cambridge. He is currently a Senior Research Fellow at Churchill College and a Fellow of the Judge Business School. In 2010 he was awarded a Pilkington Prize for excellence in teaching in the University.

He is the author of Companions in Guilt: arguments for ethical objectivity. He is also co-editor of Ramsey's Legacy (with D. H. Mellor) and Real Metaphysics (with Gonzalo Rodriguez-Pereyra).


Current Research

His main research interests include topics in ethics, political philosophy and the history of ethical thought. He is currently completing a study of the virtues and vices of detachment and not caring, entitled The Ethics of Indifference.

Research topics pursued by current PhD students include: realism in political philosophy; contextualism and the practical explication of knowledge; constructivism and explanation in ethics; moral and epistemic normativity; supererogation; moral obligation and non-voluntary benefits.


Online Papers

Metaethics and moral psychology

  • 'Smith on moral fetishism', Analysis (1997). Downloadable here.
  • 'Moral cognitivism', Philosophical Papers (2002). Downloadable here.
  • 'Debunking morality: evolutionary naturalism and moral error theory', Biology and Philosophy (2003). Downloadable here. [The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com].
  • 'Moral error theory', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (2004). Downloadable here
  • 'Companionship in guilt', Chapter 1 of Companions in Guilt, (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007) downloadable here
  • 'Davidson on value and objectivity', dialectica (2007). Downloadable here [The final publication is available at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com]
  • 'Methods of ethics and the descent of man: Darwin and Sidgwick on ethics and evolution', Biology and Philosophy (2010). Downloadable here [The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com].
  • 'The epistemology of ethical intuitions', Philosophy (2011). Downloadable here. Original publication available at http://journals.cambridge.org.
  • 'Constructivism and the error theory', in C. Miller (ed.), The Continuum Companion to Ethics (New York: Continuum, 2011). Downloadable here.
  • 'The Argument from Queerness', The International Encyclopedia of Ethics (forthcoming). Downloadable here.
  • 'The Companionship in Guilt Strategy', The International Encyclopedia of Ethics (forthcoming). Downloadable here.

Reasons, normativity and practical reason

  • 'Analytical dispositionalism and practical reason', Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (1999). Downloadable here [The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com]
  • 'Revisionary dispositionalism and practical reason', The Journal of Ethics (2000). Downloadable here. [The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com].
  • 'The doctrine of internal reasons', The Journal of Value Inquiry (2000). Downloadable here [The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com].
  • 'Moral realism, normative reasons and rational intelligibility', Erkenntnis (2002). Downloadable here. [The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com].
  • ‘The idea of a normative reason’, in Peter Schaber & Rafael Hüntelman (Eds.) Grundlagen Der Ethik: Normativität und Objektivität (Ontos Verlag, 2003). Downloadable here
  • ‘The normativity of practical reason’, (Chapter 3 of Companions in Guilt), (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007). Downloadable here.
  • 'Facts, ends, and normative reasons', The Journal of Ethics (2010). Downloadable here. [The final publication is available at www.springerlink.com].

Ethics, aesthetics and public life

  • 'Voluntary euthanasia and the logical slippery slope argument', The Cambridge Law Journal (2002). Downloadable here
  • 'Who needs bioethicists?' Studies in the History and Philosophy of Science C (2004). Downloadable here.
  • 'Benefit, disability and the nonidentity problem', in N. Athanassoulis (ed.) Philosophical Reflections on Medical Ethics (Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), downloadable here
  • ‘Values of art and the ethical question’ British Journal of Aesthetics (2008). Downloadable here.
  • ‘Reproduction, partiality and the nonidentity problem ’, in M.A. Roberts & D.T. Wasserman (Eds.) Harming Future Persons: Ethics, Genetics and the Nonidentity Problem (Springer, 2009). Downloadable here. [The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com].
  • 'Scanlon on intention and permissibility', Analysis, (2010). Downloadable here
  • 'Consequentialism and global ethics', in M. Boylan (ed.), Global Justice: the Reader (Westview, 2011). Downloadable here.
  • 'Autonomy, value and the first person' in L. Radoilska (ed), Autonomy and Mental Disorder (Oxford, 2012). Downloadable here.

Teaching 2012-2013


Michaelmas 2012

On leave

Lent 2013

  • Part IA: Utility & Rights
  • Part IB: Acts, Intentions, and Consequences
  • Part II/Graduates: Metaethics Seminar - Pragmatism in Metaethics - (with Huw Price)
  • Judge Business School: Philosophy in Business (with Alex Oliver)

Easter 2013

  • Part IB: Reasons and Relativism

(Lecture Notes available electronically on request.)


Contact Details

Email Address: hl201@cam.ac.uk

Snailmail to: Faculty of Philosophy, Raised Faculty Building, Sidgwick Avenue, Cambridge CB3 9DA


















Companions in Guilt image


EI image