LSE Philosophy

04/06/2026

🏆 We have been ranked 1st in the UK for in the Complete University Guide Subject League Table 2027!

🎓 The London School of Economics and Political Science - LSE has once again been ranked as the top university in London, retaining this position for the fifteenth consecutive year. The School was also ranked third overall among UK universities, maintaining its place among the country's leading higher education institutions.

The Complete University Guide assesses universities across a range of measures including entry standards, student satisfaction, research quality, student support, continuation rates and graduate prospects.

👉 To the ranking: https://www.thecompleteuniversityguide.co.uk/league-tables/rankings/philosophy

19/05/2026

🐶 Starting with a dog called Pip, the LSE iQ podcast explores one of the biggest ethical questions of our time. What do we really owe animals — and is the law keeping up with the ?

🎧 Listen to the latest LSE iQ podcast episode "Should animals have rights?" in which host Michael Wilkerson and the animal-welfare experts Jeff Sebo, Jonathan Birch, Jo-Anne McArthur and Carrie Friese explore what it really means to protect animal.

Animals feel. Animals suffer. So why don't they have rights? LSE iQ explores the question that changes everything.

18/05/2026

🎟️ Tickets are now live for the 2026: How to save the planet! Join us 15-20 June at LSE (on campus or online) for a week of panels, talks & workshops on , global challenges, communities & more.

👉 Programme:

What can we be doing to save the Earth, its people and environment? A programme of free events from Monday 15 to Saturday 20 June. Tickets released on 18 May.

11/05/2026

✍ New on the LSE Impact Blog!

Scientific discoveries and the innovations that stem from them are pursued by governments and science policies seeking to ultimately drive human wellbeing. Drawing on the study of science’s major discoveries, CPNSS Research Associate Alexander Krauss makes the case for the importance of new tools and scientific infrastructures being key to scientific advances.

What drives scientific discovery? Alexander Krauss makes the case for the central role of new tools and scientific infrastructures.

07/05/2026

👏 Many thanks for joining our public lecture on the of foreign intervention this week!

👉 Our experts Kieran Oberman, Somayeh Tohidi, Paola Romero, and Jonathan Parry (Chair: Alex Voorhoeve) discussed profound philosophical questions such as when, if ever, is it permissible for states to intervene militarily in the affairs of another? Can intervention be justified on humanitarian grounds even when it violates international law? Do the intentions of the interveners need to be moral for the intervention itself to be moral?

🎥 You can find the recording of the lecture on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ursZB34gjSU

29/04/2026

👋We have more amazing staff news to share. We are pleased to announce that Tom Sterkenburg will join as Assistant Professor of Philosophy with focus on .

More about his research:

Tom Sterkenburg joins the LSE Philosophy Department as as Assistant Professor of Philosophy with focus on AI.

28/04/2026

⚖️ When can citizens doubt criminal convictions?

There is now a considerable body of analytic work examining the norms of criminal conviction at trial, integrating contemporary legal theory, political philosophy and epistemology to consider when a judge or jury should doubt the guilt of an accused. This paper takes up a neglected adjacent issue: when can citizens doubt a conviction returned by a criminal court?

👉 Read the latest paper by LSE Philosophy Associate Professor Lewis Ross for Law and Philosophy:

There is now a considerable body of analytic work examining the norms of criminal conviction at trial, integrating contemporary legal theory, political philosophy and epistemology to consider when a judge or ...

21/04/2026

New blog article!

The law requires that animals killed for food should be stunned. An exception is made for religious reasons, due to Halal and Kosher rules. But while that exception is understandable, argues Jonathan Birch, the high level of non-stun slaughter in the UK is unjustified by the principle of religious freedom.

Read on:

The law requires that animals killed for food should be stunned. An exception is made for religious reasons, due to Halal and Kosher rules. But while that exception is understandable, argues Jonathan Birch, the high level of non-stun slaughter in the UK is unjustified by the principle of religious f...

20/04/2026

👋 A very warm welcome to our new colleague Kate Nicole Hoffman who will join LSE as Assistant Professor of with focus on . She will be based in and also work closely with the Global School of Sustainability at LSE 🌱

More about Kate Nicole and her research:

Kate Nicole Hoffman will join LSE as Assistant Professor of Philosophy with focus on sustainability. She will be based in the Department of Philosophy, Logic and Scientific Method and engage in extensive collaboration with LSE’s new Global School of Sustainability (GSoS).

15/04/2026

Associate Professor Kate Vredenburgh and VR specialist Lauren Wong joined the Ethical Machines podcast by Reid Blackman to discuss the true impact of on jobs.

The two experts argue that there are at least two strong reasons for calming down: first, AI isn’t good enough to replace us at our jobs. Second, even if they were, it’s up to us to develop AI in a way that supports rather than replaces us. They also talk about whether AI adoption is suffering for the same reasons the metaverse was never successful: we’re failing to appreciate how to get people to justifiably buy in to the technology.

My guests today - Professor Kate Vredenburgh and VR specialist Lauren Wong - argue that there are at least two strong reasons for calming down: first, AI isn...