Professor Richard J. Norman, BA (Cantab), PhD (London), is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 academic, philosopher and humanist

Secular humanism

Secular Humanism, alternatively known as Humanism , is a secular philosophy that embraces human reason, ethics, justice, and the search for human fulfillment...

. He is currently Emeritus

Emeritus

Emeritus is a post-positive adjective that is used to designate a retired professor, bishop, or other professional or as a title. The female equivalent emerita is also sometimes used.-History:...

 Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Kent

University of Kent

The University of Kent, previously the University of Kent at Canterbury, is a public research university based in Kent, United Kingdom...

, and Vice-President of the British Humanist Association

British Humanist Association

The British Humanist Association is an organisation of the United Kingdom which promotes Humanism and represents "people who seek to live good lives without religious or superstitious beliefs." The BHA is committed to secularism, human rights, democracy, egalitarianism and mutual respect...

.

He formerly taught philosophy at the University of Kent, where his areas of interest were mainly moral and political philosophy

Political philosophy

Political philosophy is the study of such topics as liberty, justice, property, rights, law, and the enforcement of a legal code by authority: what they are, why they are needed, what, if anything, makes a government legitimate, what rights and freedoms it should protect and why, what form it...

, including both theoretical and practical ethics

Ethics

Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...

. His published works include:

• The Moral Philosophers (1983)
• Free and Equal (1987)
• Ethics, Killing and War (1995)
• On Humanism (2004)

External links

• http://newhumanist.org.uk/2174/beyond-beliefBeyond belief: article by Richard Norman in the New Humanist
  New Humanist
  New Humanist is a monthly magazine published by the Rationalist Association in the UK. It has been in print for 125 years; starting out life as Watts's Literary Guide, founded by C. A. Watts in November 1885....
  
  ], November 2009
• Can There be a Just War?: article first published in Think magazine