Biography:Onora O'Neill

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Short description: British philosopher & college principal
The Right Honourable

The Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve

CH CBE HonFRS FBA FMedSci MRIA
Official portrait of Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve crop 2.jpg
President of the British Academy
In office
2005–2009
Preceded byGarry Runciman, 3rd Viscount Runciman of Doxford
Succeeded bySir Adam Roberts
10th Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge
In office
1992–2006
Preceded bySheila Browne
Succeeded byPatricia Hodgson
Member of the House of Lords
Lord Temporal
Assumed office
25 February 1999
Life peerage
Personal details
Born
Onora Sylvia O'Neill

(1941-08-23) 23 August 1941 (age 82)
Aughafatten, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom
NationalityBritish
Political partyNone (crossbencher)
EducationSt Paul's Girls' School
Alma materSomerville College, Oxford
Harvard University
OccupationPhilosopher and politician
Awards
  • Berggruen Prize (2017)
    Holberg Prize (2017)
Philosophy career
EraContemporary philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
SchoolAnalytic philosophy
Main interests

Onora Sylvia O'Neill, Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve, CH, CBE, HonFRS, FBA, FMedSci, MRIA (born 23 August 1941) is a British philosopher and a crossbench member of the House of Lords.

Early life and education

Onora Sylvia O'Neill was born on 23 August 1941 in Aughafatten.[1][2] The daughter of Sir Con O'Neill, she was educated partly in Germany and at St Paul's Girls' School, London, before studying philosophy, psychology and physiology at Somerville College, Oxford. She went on to complete a doctorate at Harvard University, with John Rawls as supervisor.

Career

During the 1970s, she taught at Barnard College, the women's college in Columbia University, New York City. In 1977, she returned to Britain and took up a post at the University of Essex; she was Professor of Philosophy there when she became Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge in 1992.[citation needed]

She is an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, a former President of the British Academy (2005–2009) and chaired the Nuffield Foundation (1998–2010).[3] From 2004 to 2006, she was President of the British Philosophical Association.[4] In 2013, she held the Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at the University of Amsterdam.[5] Until October 2006, she was the Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge, and she was chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission until April 2016. O'Neill's work has earned her numerous honours and awards, including the million-dollar Berggruen Prize.[6]

Philosophy

O'Neill has written widely on political philosophy and ethics, international justice, bioethics and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.

Across various works, O'Neill has defended and applied a constructivist interpretation of Kantian ethics heavily influenced by, and yet critical of, the work of John Rawls, emphasising the importance of trust, consent and respect for autonomy in a just society. She has written extensively about trust, noting "that people often choose to rely on the very people whom they claimed not to trust" and suggesting that we "need to free professionals and the public service to serve the public...to work towards more intelligent forms of accountability...[and] to rethink a media culture in which spreading suspicion has become a routine activity".[7]

Honours and distinctions

O'Neill has been President of the Aristotelian Society (1988 to 1989), a member of the Animal Procedures Committee (1990 to 1994), chair of Nuffield Council on Bioethics (1996 to 1998), a member and then acting chair of the Human Genetics Advisory Commission (1996 to 1999) and a member of the select committee on BBC Charter Review. She is presently chair of the Nuffield Foundation (since 1997), a trustee of Sense about Science (since 2002), a trustee of the Ditchley Foundation, and a trustee of the Gates Cambridge Trust. She also served as President of the British Academy between 2005 and 2009. She is on the Advisory Board of Incentives for Global Health, the NGO formed to develop the Health Impact Fund proposal.

In 1999, she was created a life peer as Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve, of The Braid in the County of Antrim, and in 2007 was elected an Honorary FRS.[8] She is also a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1993) and the Austrian Academy of Sciences (2002), a Foreign Member of the American Philosophical Society (2003),[9] and Hon. Member Royal Irish Academy (2003), a Foreign Member of the Leopoldina (2004) and the Norwegian Academy of Sciences (2006)[10] and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.[11] She is an elected fellow of the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institution.[12] In 2007, O'Neill became a Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society.[13] In 2004 she was awarded an Honorary Degree (Doctor of Letters) from the University of Bath. She is a Distinguished Senior Fellow of the School of Advanced Study, University of London, an honour awarded in 2009.

O'Neill also received an Honorary Doctorate from Heriot-Watt University in 2007, and from Harvard in 2010.[14][15]

In October 2012, she was nominated as the next Chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission,[16] and confirmed as such in January 2013.

O'Neill was appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2014 New Year Honours for services to philosophy and public policy.[17]

In 2014, O'Neill was elected to the German order Pour le mérite für Wissenschaften und Künste.[18]

In September 2015, during the XII. quinquennial international Kant-conference in Vienna, she received the Kant-Preis of the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung for her scholarly work on the practical and political philosophy of Immanuel Kant. (see 12th International Kant Congress 2015 » Social Program)

In February 2016, she was awarded the Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany for her outstanding contribution to moral and ethical questions of trust, accountability in civic life, justice and virtue.[19]

Currently, she is the president of the Society for Applied Philosophy, a society founded in 1982 with the aim of promoting philosophical study and research that has a direct bearing on areas of practical concern.[20]

In 2017, she was awarded the Norwegian Holberg Prize for outstanding contributions to research in the arts and humanities "for her influential role in ethical and political philosophy".[21] The same year she was awarded the Berggruen Prize.[22]

O'Neill is an Honorary Fellow of Somerville College.[23]

In 2021, O'Neill received an honorary doctorate from the University of Antwerp.[24]

Coat of arms of Onora O'Neill
Escutcheon
Quarterly 1st & 4th per fess wavy the chief Argent and the base representing waves of the sea in chief a dexter hand couped at the wrist Gules in base a salmon naiant Proper (O'Neill) 2nd & 3rd chequy Or and Gules a chief Vert (Chichester).[25]
Supporters
On either side a heron Proper beaked and legged Or holding in the beak a cross botony fitchy bendwise sinister Sable.
Motto
Lamh Dearg Eirin

Bibliography

Books

  • O'Neill, Onora (1975). Acting on principle : an essay on Kantian ethics. New York: Columbia University Press. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (1986). Faces of Hunger: An Essay on Poverty, Development and Justice. Allen & Unwin. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (1989). Constructions of Reason: Exploration of Kant's Practical Philosophy. Cambridge University Press. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (1996). Towards Justice and Virtue. Cambridge University Press. https://archive.org/details/towardsjusticevi0000onei. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (2000). Bounds of Justice. Cambridge University Press. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (2002). Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics (The 2001 Gifford Lectures). Cambridge University Press. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (2002). A Question of Trust: The BBC Reith Lectures. Cambridge University Press. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (2005). Justice, Trust and Accountability. Cambridge University Press. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (2007). Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics. Cambridge University Press.  (with Neil Manson)
  • O'Neill, Onora (2015). Constructing authorities : reason, politics, and interpretation in Kant's philosophy. Cambridge University Press. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (2016). Justice across boundaries : whose obligations?. Cambridge University Press. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (2016). Speech Rights and Speech Wrongs. Assen: Koninklijke van Gorcum. 
  • O'Neill, Onora (2022). A Philosopher Looks at Digital Communication. Cambridge University Press. 

Selected articles

See also: Scanlon, T. M. (December 2003). "Replies". Ratio 16 (4): 424–439. doi:10.1046/j.1467-9329.2003.00231.x. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:3310977. 

See also

  • List of Northern Ireland members of the House of Lords

References

  1. ↑ Brady, Emily (1997). "O'Neill, Onora". in Brown, Stuart C.. Biographical Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Philosophers. Routledge. pp. 583–584. doi:10.4324/9780203014479. ISBN 0-415-06043-5. OCLC 38862354. https://archive.org/details/biographicaldict0000unse_b8m6. 
  2. ↑ Brown, Stuart; Bredin, Hugh Terence (August 2005). Dictionary of Twentieth-Century British Philosophers. A & C Black. p. 733. ISBN 978-1-84371-096-7. https://books.google.com/books?id=uL3UAwAAQBAJ&q=Onora+Sylvia+O%27Neill&pg=PA733. 
  3. ↑ Biography of Officers of the British Academy.
  4. ↑ "History of the BPA". 12 February 2020. https://bpa.ac.uk/history-of-the-bpa/. 
  5. ↑ Universiteit van Amsterdam. "The Spinoza Chair". uva.nl. http://www.uva.nl/en/disciplines/philosophy/home/components-centrecolumn/the-spinoza-chair.html. 
  6. ↑ "Former British Academy President Onora O'Neill wins $1m philosophy prize | British Academy" (in en). https://www.britac.ac.uk/news/former-british-academy-president-onora-o%E2%80%99neill-wins-1m-philosophy-prize. 
  7. ↑ "Reith 2002: A Question of Trust - Onora O'Neill". OpenLearn. http://www.open2.net/reith2002/onora_oneill_trust_p.html. 
  8. ↑ "News". Archived from the original on 17 June 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20070617182045/http://www.britac.ac.uk/news/release.asp?NewsID=252. 
  9. ↑ "APS Member History". https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Onora+O%27Neill&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced. 
  10. ↑ House of Lords biography
  11. ↑ Debretts People of Today 2007.
  12. ↑ The Hastings Center Hastings Center Fellows. Accessed 6 November 2010.
  13. ↑ "Onora O'Neill". https://royalsociety.org/people/onora-oneill-12024/. 
  14. ↑ "Annual Review 2007 : Principal's Review". http://www1.hw.ac.uk/annual-review/2007/people_awards.html. 
  15. ↑ "Honorary degrees awarded". Harvard Gazette. 2010-05-27. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2010/05/honorary-degrees/. 
  16. ↑ "Baroness Onora O'Neill to head human rights body". The Scotsman. http://www.scotsman.com/news/uk/baroness-onora-o-neill-to-head-human-rights-body-1-2561749. 
  17. ↑ No. 60728. 31 December 2013. p. 5. https://www.thegazette.co.uk/London/issue/60728/supplement/5 
  18. ↑ "Pour le Mérite: Onora O'Neill". www.orden-pourlemerite.de. 2018. http://www.orden-pourlemerite.de/sites/default/files/vita/o%27neill_vita_0.pdf. 
  19. ↑ "Scholar Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve awarded Knight Commander's Cross of the Order of Merit". http://www.uk.diplo.de/Vertretung/unitedkingdom/en/__pr/Embassy__Events/02/BaronessONeill.html. 
  20. ↑ "The Society for Applied Philosophy". http://www.appliedphil.org/view/index.html. 
  21. ↑ Holberg Prize Laureates 2017 10. March 2017.
  22. ↑ Jennifer Schuessler (3 October 2017). "Onora O'Neill Wins $1 Million Berggruen Prize for Philosophy". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/03/arts/onora-oneill-berggruen-prize.html. 
  23. ↑ "Emeritus and Honorary Fellows". Somerville College, Oxford. https://www.some.ox.ac.uk/about-somerville/emeritus-and-honorary-fellows/. 
  24. ↑ "Onora O'Neill | Arts | University of Antwerp". https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/about-uantwerp/faculties/faculty-of-arts/news-and-events/masterclass-onora-oneill/. 
  25. ↑ Debrett's Peerage. 2015. p. 946. 

External links

Academic offices
Preceded by
Sheila Browne 		Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge
1992–2006 		Succeeded by
Patricia Hodgson
Professional and academic associations
Preceded by
Roger Trigg 		President of the British Philosophical Association
2004–2006 		Succeeded by
Brad Hooker
Preceded by
The Viscount Runciman of Doxford 		President of the British Academy
2005–2009 		Succeeded by
Sir Adam Roberts
Awards
Preceded by
Charles Taylor 		Berggruen Prize
2017 		Succeeded by
Martha Nussbaum



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