It was good to be back in Oxford, writes Dina Medland (1977, PPE), celebrating education, philosophy and women at a moment when politics and leadership all over the globe are under pressure.
As the closely watched Presidential Election campaign in the United States clamoured into its final few days, on November 2nd Somerville College held an 80th birthday celebration for Lesley Brown, Emeritus Fellow in Philosophy. Lesley, who has dedicated her life to the careful thinking and teaching of the ancient philosophers, in particular Plato and Aristotle, has been at Somerville since the 1960s when she was as an undergraduate. This birthday celebration also provided an occasion to hail a surrounding in which women’s voices have long been heard.
We came together from many different walks of life and experiences. There was no shortage of conversation as we made new friends, lunched and shared stories, and raised glasses to hail our belonging, and to celebrate those who lead by teaching. Autumn had arrived, and the college lawns were a rich carpet of autumnal leaves and colour.
Lesley Brown and guests before the panel discussion
Decades at Somerville as a tutor in Philosophy has given Lesley a rich stream of knowledge of clever and thoughtful women. As a tribute, she offered what she termed her “first and last Powerpoint philosophy presentation” – From Post-War Moral Philosophy to 21st century Ethics, paying homage first to Elizabeth Anscombe, and to Philippa Foot, who dominated thinking on moral philosophy in their time, and shaped the intellectual history of the 20th century.
Read the transcript of Lesley Brown’s Lecture
Benjamin Lipscomb’s book ‘The Women Are Up To Something’ published in 2021, traces the development of thinking on ethics by four women – Anscombe and Foot, Iris Murdoch and Mary Midgeley. In 2022, the same four Somerville women were celebrated in the book ‘Metaphysical Animals’ by Clare Mac Cumhaill and Rachael Wiseman for chafing against the existing, dominantly male, philosophical consensus. Anil Gomes, fellow and tutor in philosophy at Trinity College Oxford, writes in The Guardian newspaper in a book review: “The narrative is of four brilliant women finding their voices, opposing received wisdom, and developing an alternative picture of human beings and their place in the world.”
Oxford taught me how to think, and moral philosophy grounded me.
While the pre-war thinking and philosophical thinking of A.J. Ayer, he says, separated “facts” from our expressions of approval and disapproval depending on “values”, that thinking was upended by the four women philosophers. Gomes writes, “they wanted a new picture, one in which evil and cruelty are just as much part of the world as rivers and rock formations.”
Being back at the college, I could not help but think of all the women who studied there who were deemed “opinionated” and yet ended up in powerful positions of global leadership.
Somervillians Indira Gandhi (Prime Minister of India 1966-67 and 1980-84) and Margaret Thatcher (Prime Minister of the United Kingdom 1979-1990) and Shirley Williams are among famous politicians, but there are many writers, thinkers and social reformers among former students.
Shirley Williams, who read PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics) in 1948 had a distinguished political career spanning the creation of a new political party in 1981, the Social Democratic Party which later merged with the Liberal Democrats. She also worked as an academic, and her words on ‘lessons’ to others resonate when it comes to any celebration of the study of moral philosophy, or ethics: “think, write and read, always; live and work vividly, and bring your mind to bear on everything, from the tiniest practical problem to the widest social issue; respect the views of others, and of the past, but don’t let that stop you being awkward when you need to be. Argue for what you believe, and do it well.”
Lesley Brown spoke alongside Professor Karen Margrethe Nielsen, Somerville’s Tutorial Fellow in Philosophy and Dr Joanna Demaree-Cotton, Research Fellow in Moral Psychology, Uehiro Oxford
It felt wonderful, going back, to be part of such a rich international intellectual heritage. I was at Somerville for only two years doing PPE, as I had come with a Political Science and Economics degree from Wellesley College in the United States. Parental pressure dictated I choose Economics and Politics out of three PPE subjects. But I heard Mary Warnock lecture on moral philosophy, (Lesley Brown was on sabbatical) and I knew that I had to switch, dropping Economics for Moral Philosophy.
Oxford taught me how to think, and moral philosophy grounded me. Years later, by now a self-employed journalist with a business blog focused on corporate governance and ethics, I thought of Mary Warnock. I sent her an email via the House of Lords, she remembered me well and invited me to tea, resulting in glorious conversation and tea at the House of Lords.
Dina Medland is a regular contributor to the FT and Forbes, founded the independent blog Board Talk and has consulted and written for several think-tanks and businesses large and small.