Staff profile

I am a partly-retired Professor at Durham Philosophy Department where I specialise in a broad range of issues concerning moral philosophy. I have an abiding interest in utilitarianism and the philosophy of John Stuart Mill and have also written on the subject of death which I considered from both an historical point of view and across a broad spectrum of different thinkers. 

My most recent research has focussed on the notion of courage and also on the ethics of archaeology. As such, I have founded and am the Co-Director of the Durham University Centre for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage. This is an inter-disciplinary body of academics from Durham - predominantly from Philosophy and Archaeology - aiming to develop rigorous and systematic analysis of the ethically complex and, at times, politically charged, issue of cultural heritage.

• Moral responsibility
• Utilitarianism
• Death
• Forgiveness
• Evil
• John Stuart Mill
• Ethics of Archaeology

• Aesthetics, Ethics and Politics

Authored book

• Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Aging. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2010). On Courage. Routledge.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2007). Mill's on Liberty: a reader's guide. London, New York: Continuum.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2007). Death. Stocksfield: Acumen.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2004). After evil: responding to wrongdoing. Aldershot: Ashgate.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (1996). Utilitarianism. London: Routledge.

Chapter in book

• Scarre, Geoffrey (2022). Forgiveness and Ageing. In The Cambridge Handbook of the Ethics of Ageing. Wareham, C.S. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 146-160.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2022). Who Is Entitled to Forgive? A Study of ‘Third-Party’ and ‘Proxy’ Forgiveness. In Conflict and Resolution: The Ethics of Forgiveness, Revenge, and Punishment. Satne, Paula & Scheiter, Krisanna M. Cham: Springer. 207-222.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2022). Killing swiftly: The effects of COVID-19 on the experience of the elderly. In Creative Resilience and COVID-19. Gammel, Irene & Wang, Jason London: Routledge. 61-69.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2021). Do We Have Moral Duties to Past People? In The Oxford Handbook of Intergenerational Ethics. Gardiner, Stephen M. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2020). Das Nichtvergebbare Vergeben? Moralische Verantwortung und Ideologisch Motiviertes Unrechtshandeln. In Nationalsozialistische Ideologie und Ethic: Dokumentation Einer Debatte. Bialas, Wolfgang & Fritz, Lothar Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 351-366.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2020). How memorials speak to us. In Philosophical Perspectives on Ruins, Monuments, and Memorials. Bicknell, Jeanette, Judkins, Jennifer & Korsmeyer, Carolyn Routledge. 21-33.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2018). Utilitarianism and Evil. In The History of Evil in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 1700-1900 CE. Hedley, Douglas, Meister, Chad & Taliaferro, Charles Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. 4: 118-135.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2017). Is it possible to be better off dead? In Ethics at the end of life. Davis, John K. New York: Routledge. 11-28.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). The aging of people and of things. In The Palgrave Handbook of the Philosophy of Aging. Scarre, Geoffrey London: Palgrave Macmillan. 87-100.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2014). The ethics of digging. In Cultural Heritage Ethics: Between Theory and Practice. Sandis, Constantine Cambridge: Open Book Publishers. 117-127.
• Scarre, G.F. (2013). The vulnerability of the dead. In The Metaphysics and Ethics of Death. New Essays. Taylor, James Stacey Oxford: Oxford University Press. 171-187.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2013). 'Sapient trouble-tombs'?: Archaeologists' moral obligations to the dead. In The Oxford Handbook of the Archaeology of Death and Burial. Tarlow, Sarah & Nillson Stutz, Liv Oxford University Press. 665-676.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2010). Evil. In The Routledge Companion to Ethics. Skorupski, John London: Routledge. 584-595.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2010). Apologising for historical injustices. In The Ethics of Forgiveness. Fricke, C. Routledge. 166-178.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2009). The repatriation of human remains. In The Ethics of Cultural Appropriation. Young, J. & Brunk, C. Blackwell. 72-92.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2009). Dying and philosophy. In The Study of Dying: From Autonomy to Transformation. Kellehear, A. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 147-162.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2009). Wrong that is right? The paradox of the 'Felix culpa'. In The Positive Functions of Evil. Tabensky, P. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. 14-27.

Edited book

• Holtorf, Cornelius, Pantazatos, Andreas & Scarre, Geoffrey (2019). Cultural Heritage, Ethics and Contemporary Migrations. Routledge.
• Geoffrey Scarre & Robin Coningham (2013). Appropriating the past. Cambridge University Press.
• Scarre, Chris & Scarre, Geoffrey (2006). The ethics of archaeology: philosophical perspectives on archaeological practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. & Garrard, E. (2003). Moral philosophy and the Holocaust. Aldershot: Ashgate.

Journal Article

• Scarre, Geoffrey (2017). The ‘constitutive thought’ of regret. International Journal of Philosophical Studies 25(5): 569-585.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2017). ‘The compages, the bonds and rivets of the race’ W. E. Gladstone on the keeping of books. Library and Information History 33(3): 182-194.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). Fallible infallibility? Gladstone's anti-Vatican pamphlets in the light of Mill's On Liberty. Victorian Literature and Culture 44(02): 223-237.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). Forgiveness and Identification. Philosophia 44(4): 1021-1028.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2016). On taking back forgiveness. Ethical Theory and Moral Practice 19(4): 931-944.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2014). Virtuous condonation. Philosophical Papers 43(4): 405-428.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2014). Lest we forget: how and why we should remember the Great War. Ethical Perspectives 21(3): 321-344.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2013). The continence of virtue. Philosophical Investigations 36(1): 1-19.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2013). Privacy and the Dead. Philosophy in the Contemporary World 19(1): 1-16.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2013). Speaking of the dead: a postscript. Mortality 18(3): 313-318.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2012). Can there be a good death? Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice 18(5): 1082-1086.
• Scarre, G.F. (2012). Evil collectives. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 36(1): 74-92.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2012). Speaking of the dead. Mortality 17(1): 36-50.
• Scarre, Geoffrey (2011). Political reconciliation, forgiveness and grace. Journal of Christian Ethics 24(2): 171-182.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2009). The banality of good? Journal of moral philosophy 6(4): 499-519
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2006). Corrective justice and reputation. Journal of moral philosophy 3(3): 305-319.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2005). Excusing the inexcusable? Moral responsibility and ideologically-motivated wrongdoing. Journal of social philosophy 36(4): 457-472.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2003). Corporal punishment. Ethical theory & moral practice 6(3): 295-316.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2003). Archaeology and respect for the dead. Journal of applied philosophy 20(3): 237–249.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (2001). On caring about one's posthumous reputation. American philosophical quarterly 38(2): 209-219.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (1998). Interpreting the categorical imperative. British journal for the history of philosophy 6(2): 223-236.
• Scarre, Geoffrey. (1998). Understanding the moral phenomenology of the Third Reich. Ethical theory and moral practice 1(4): 423-445.