Professor Sir Ralph Nicholas Wedgwood, 4th Baronet (born 10 December 1964) 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...

 philosopher. He is Fellow of Merton College

Merton College, Oxford

Merton College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. Its foundation can be traced back to the 1260s when Walter de Merton, chancellor to Henry III and later to Edward I, first drew up statutes for an independent academic community and established endowments to...

, Oxford.

Wedgwood is the only son of Martin Wedgwood

Sir Martin Wedgwood, 3rd Baronet

Sir Martin Wedgwood was a British stockbroker and linguist.Wedgwood was the eldest son of Sir John Wedgwood, 2nd Baronet. He was a great-great-great-great-grandson of the master potter Josiah Wedgwood...

, later 3rd Baronet, and his wife the architectural historian Alexandra (known as Sandra; née Gordon Clark), daughter of the judge and crime novelist, Alfred Gordon Clark

Cyril Hare

Cyril Hare, the pseudonym of Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark was an English judge and crime writer.- Life and work :...

. He was named after his great-grandfather, Sir Ralph Wedgwood, 1st Baronet; his first name is pronounced /ˈreɪf/. Wedgwood is a great-great-great-great-great-grandson of the master potter Josiah Wedgwood

Josiah Wedgwood

Josiah Wedgwood was an English potter, founder of the Wedgwood company, credited with the industrialization of the manufacture of pottery. A prominent abolitionist, Wedgwood is remembered for his "Am I Not A Man And A Brother?" anti-slavery medallion. He was a member of the Darwin–Wedgwood family...

. He inherited the Wedgwood Baronetcy of Etruria

Etruria, Staffordshire

Etruria is a suburb of Stoke-on-Trent, Staffordshire, England.-Home of Wedgwood:Etruria was the fourth and penultimate site for the Wedgwood pottery business. Josiah Wedgwood, who was previously based in Burslem, opened his new works in 1769. It was named after the Italian district of Etruria,...

 upon the death of his father on 12 October 2010. The heir presumptive

Heir Presumptive

An heir presumptive or heiress presumptive is the person provisionally scheduled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir or heiress apparent or of a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the position in question...

 to the Baronetcy is John Julian Wedgwood (born 1936), son of the 2nd Baronet.

He states that his research interests are "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:...

 (especially meta-ethics

Meta-ethics

In philosophy, meta-ethics is the branch of ethics that seeks to understand the nature of ethical properties, statements, attitudes, and judgments. Meta-ethics is one of the three branches of ethics generally recognized by philosophers, the others being normative ethics and applied ethics. Ethical...

), epistemology, and related issues in metaphysics

Metaphysics

Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...

 and the philosophy of language

Philosophy of language

Philosophy of language is the reasoned inquiry into the nature, origins, and usage of language. As a topic, the philosophy of language for analytic philosophers is concerned with four central problems: the nature of meaning, language use, language cognition, and the relationship between language...

". He is author of the book The Nature of Normativity (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2007)