Roger Scruton
In Memoriam, 1944-2020
Sir Roger Scruton was a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a philosopher, writer, and public commentator widely known for his work on aesthetics and culture and for his defense of conservative political philosophy.
Sir Roger Scruton was a Senior Fellow of the Ethics and Public Policy Center and a philosopher, writer, and public commentator widely known for his work on aesthetics and culture and for his defense of conservative political philosophy.
Mr. Scruton was the author of more than forty books, ranging in subject matter from academic works on aesthetics, art, and music to popular accounts of conservatism, utopianism, and political philosophy to personal reflections on drinking wine and hunting.
A prolific essayist, Mr. Scruton regularly wrote columns and essays for such publications as The New Statesman, The American Spectator, The New Criterion, and The New Atlantis, where he was a contributing editor. He was also the editor of The Salisbury Review from its founding in 1982 until 2001.
In addition to his nonfiction, he wrote two novels and several short stories, and has composed two operas (The Minister and Violet).
Mr. Scruton taught philosophy and aesthetics at Princeton, Oxford, the University of St. Andrews, Boston University, and Birkbeck College. He was also a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a research fellow at the Institute for the Psychological Sciences. In 2011, Mr. Scruton delivered the Stanton Lectures at the Divinity School at the University of Cambridge. In 2010, he delivered the Gifford Lectures at St. Andrews. In 2009, he wrote and narrated an acclaimed hour-long BBC documentary, Why Beauty Matters.
Mr. Scruton was a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature (since 2003) and a fellow of the British Academy (since 2008). In 1998, he was awarded the Medal of Merit of the Czech Republic, one of that nation’s highest state honors, in recognition for his role in the “underground university” he had helped establish in Czechoslovakia in the last decade of communism. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Cambridge.
Why MPs Have a Duty to Resist Online Petitions
Roger Scruton
The lesson of history, that mass movements threaten freedom, is a lesson that will never be learned. This is why we have parliaments, with their complex procedures, committees and reviews.
Articles
The Spectator (UK) / August 19, 2015
The Good of Corporations
Roger Scruton
The issue of whether the rights and duties of the corporation are in any way comparable to those of the individual citizen connects with deep moral issues concerning the place of free association and the experience of membership in the life of the individual.
Articles
The Heritage Foundation - Legal Issues / April 16, 2015
‘The Truth is Hard’: An Interview with Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton
Roger Scruton talks with the Spectator about immigration, education, and his new novel.
Articles
Spectator (UK) / April 2, 2015
A Point of View: How Do We Know Real Art When We See It?
Roger Scruton
Beauty, form, and redemption are the elements of every true work of art.
Articles
BBC News Magazine / January 7, 2015
A Point of View: The Strangely Enduring Power of Kitsch
Roger Scruton
Modern art has been shaped, above all else, by a fear of kitsch, but modernists’ obsession with fake emotion continues to haunt their enterprise.
Articles
BBC News Magazine / December 18, 2014
A Point of View: Has Modern Art Exhausted Its Power to Shock?
Roger Scruton
It is worth asking ourselves why the cult of fake originality has such a powerful appeal to our cultural institutions, so that every museum and art gallery, and every publicly funded concert hall, has to take it seriously.
Articles
BBC News Magazine / December 10, 2014
Inequality Matters
Roger Scruton
Thomas Piketty’s proposed solution for wealth inequality would lead to massive accumulations of power in the hands of the ‘expert advisors’ — in other words in the hands of people like Piketty.
Articles
Forbes / November 10, 2014
My Brain and I
Roger Scruton
Although today’s neuroscience would dispense with the common understanding of the mind, and much of philosophy along with it, there is a better way of understanding who human beings are.
Articles
The New Atlantis - Spring 2014 issue / October 16, 2014
Air Strikes Are Not Enough To Defeat ISIS
Roger Scruton
Sooner or later, Western countries will have to directly confront the grave and growing threat posed by ISIS.
Articles
Forbes / October 11, 2014