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Tribute to Professor Timothy Sprigge

11th September 2007

The Centre has just learned of the death of one of its distinguished Advisers, Professor Timothy Sprigge, who was Professor Emeritus (Logic and Metaphysics) in the University of Edinburgh. Professor Sprigge was one of the major UK philosophers who helped pioneer early philosophical interest in the moral status of animals. He contributed to the RSPCA’s landmark conference on ‘The Rights of Animals’, arranged by Professor Andrew Linzey and Dr Richard Ryder at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1976, and maintained a life-long interest in the cause of animal protection. He was Chair for many years of the Scottish organisation, Advocates for Animals, and was an enthusiastic supporter of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics. “The animal protection movement owes him a great deal”, commented the Centre’s Director, Professor Linzey, “and we mourn his passing”.

His early paper, ‘The Animal Welfare Movement and the Foundations of Ethics’ is published in David Paterson and Richard D. Ryder (eds), Animals’ Rights – A Symposium (Fontwell, Sussex: The Centaur Press, 1979). Professor Sprigge’s major works include: The Vindication of Absolute Idealism (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1983), and The God of Metaphysics (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

His obituary in The Guardian is here.