Frances M. Kamm

Lucius Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy, Emerita
Professor of Philosophy, Harvard Department of Philosophy
Frances Kamm
Harvard University Profile

Frances Kamm is the Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government, as well as Professor of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She is the author of Creation and Abortion (1992); Morality, Mortality, Vol. 1: Death and Whom to Save From It (1993); Morality, Mortality, Vol. 2: Rights, Duties, and Status (1996); Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm (2007), and, most recently, Ethics for Enemies: Terror, Torture, & War (2011). She has also published many articles on normative ethical theory and practical ethics.

Professor Kamm has held ACLS, AAUW, and Guggenheim fellowships, and has been a Fellow of the Program in Ethics and the Professions at the Kennedy School, the Center for Human Values at Princeton, and the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford. She is a member of the editorial boards of Philosophy & Public Affairs, Legal Theory, Bioethics, and Utilitas, and was a consultant on ethics to the World Health Organization.

Professor Kamm delivered the annual Oslo Lecture in Moral Philosophy in August 2007. In 2008, she delivered the Uehiro Lectures at Oxford. In November 2009, Professor Kamm participated, along with Steve Pyke, T.M. Scanlon, and Alex Voorhoeve in "Counter-Composition: Conversations on Ethics," held at the Humanities Center, Harvard University. In 2010-2011, Professor Kamm delivered the Auguste Comte Memorial Lectures at the London School of Economics. In 2011, Professor Kamm was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. More information about her election can be found here.

On May 24, 2011, Professor Kamm participated in a panel discussion, "Who Am I? Beyond 'I Think, Therefore I Am'," along with Alex Voorhoeve, Elie During, Timothy Wilson, and David Jopling. On March 19-21, 2013, Professor Kamm delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the University of California, Berkeley.

Professor Kamm was a Faculty Fellow in Ethics in 1989-1990, a Faculty Associate in Ethics from 2003 to 2010, and a Senior Scholar in Ethics from 2003-2006, 2008-2009, 2011-2012, and 2012-2013. In 2009-2010, she served as Acting Director of the Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellowship program, and she served on the Center's Faculty Committee from 2010-2017. Professor Kamm endowed the Center's Mala and Solomon Kamm Lecture in Ethics.