Frances M. Kamm

Lucius Littauer Professor of Philosophy and Public Policy, Emerita

Professor of Philosophy, Harvard Department of Philosophy, Emerita

Henry Rutgers University Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy, Department of Philosophy, Rutgers University

Frances Kamm is the Henry Rutgers University Professor of Philosophy and Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. Professor Kamm is also the Littauer Professor emerita of Philosophy and Public Policy in the Kennedy School of Government, as well as Professor emerita of Philosophy in the Faculty of Arts & Sciences. She is the author of Creation and Abortion (1992); Morality, Mortality, Vol. 1: Death and Whom to Save From It (1993); Morality, Mortality, Vol. 2: Rights, Duties, and Status (1996); Intricate Ethics: Rights, Responsibilities, and Permissible Harm (2007), Ethics for Enemies: Terror, Torture, & War (2011); The Moral Target: Aiming at Right Conduct in War and Other Conflicts (2012); Bioethical Prescriptions: To Create, End, Choose, and Improve Lives (2013); The Trolley Problem Mysteries (2015); Almost Over: Aging, Dying, Dead (2020), and most recently Rights and Their Limits: In Theory, Cases, and Pandemics (2022). She has also published many articles on normative ethical theory and practical ethics.

Professor Kamm has held ACLS, AAUW, and Guggenheim fellowships, and has been a Fellow of the Program in Ethics and the Professions at the Kennedy School, the Center for Human Values at Princeton, and the Center for Advanced Study at Stanford. Professor Kamm is the current President (2026-2027) of the American Philosophical Association (Eastern Division), and was Vice President in 2025-2026. She is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of Moral Philosophy, Legal Theory, Free and Equal (previously Philosophy & Public Affairs), and The Journal of Practical Ethics, and was previously on the editorial boards of Bioethics and Utilitas. Kamm is a consultant on ethics to the World Health Organization.

Professor Kamm delivered the annual Oslo Lecture in Moral Philosophy in August 2007. In 2008, she delivered the Uehiro Lectures at Oxford. In November 2009, Professor Kamm participated, along with Steve Pyke, T.M. Scanlon, and Alex Voorhoeve in "Counter-Composition: Conversations on Ethics," held at the Humanities Center, Harvard University. In 2010-2011, Professor Kamm delivered the Auguste Comte Memorial Lectures at the London School of Economics. On May 24, 2011, Professor Kamm participated in a panel discussion, "Who Am I? Beyond 'I Think, Therefore I Am'," along with Alex Voorhoeve, Elie During, Timothy Wilson, and David Jopling. On March 19-21, 2013, Professor Kamm delivered the Tanner Lectures on Human Values at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Kamm gave the Winchester Lectures at the University of Oxford (2013); the Biever Lecture at Loyola University in New Orleans (2015); the A.I. Melden Lecture at University of California, Irvine (2017); the Lanson Lecture in Bioethics at Chinese University Medical School, Hong Kong University (2018); the Smart Lecture, Australian National University (2019); and the Knox Lecture, University of St. Andrews (2022). In 2011, Professor Kamm was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

Professor Kamm was a Faculty Fellow in Ethics in 1989-1990, a Faculty Associate in Ethics from 2003 to 2010, and a Senior Scholar in Ethics from 2003-2006, 2008-2009, 2011-2012, and 2012-2013. In 2009-2010, she served as Acting Director of the Edmond J. Safra Graduate Fellowship program, and she served on the Center's Faculty Committee from 2010-2017. Professor Kamm endowed the Center's Mala and Solomon Kamm Lecture in Ethics.