Dr Nikhil Krishnan: The Problematic and the Unproblematic

It’s 100 years since the first Royal Institute of Philosophy Lectures were held in 1925. To mark the centenary, the 2025/6 London Lecture Series focuses on the theme Philosophy in Retrospect and in Prospect. Distinguished philosophers have been invited to reflect on where their area of the discipline has got to over the last hundred years, and/or where it might go – or should go – over the next hundred.

All lectures include a post-lecture "in conversation" session with our Academic Director Edward Harcourt, followed by audience Q&A.

A traditional aim of moral philosophy has been to call into question the morality of something previously thought innocent—what one might call the problematising of the unproblematic. But it has equally been an aim of moral philosophy to do the opposite, to reveal the innocence of things previously thought immoral, to turn what was previously a matter of blame and condemnation to one of private judgement and discretion. The politics of the last decade have been accused of moralistic excess. If the charge is fair, how might moral philosophy help cure us of moralism?

Nikhil Krishnan is the author of A Terribly Serious Adventure: Philosophy at Oxford 1900-60.

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