Ruth Chang is an American philosopher and legal scholar who serves as the Professor and Chair of Jurisprudence at the University of Oxford,[1] a Professorial Fellow of University College, Oxford, and an American professor of philosophy. She was previously a professor at Rutgers University from 1998 to 2019. She is known for her research on the incommensurability of values and on practical reason and normativity.[2][3] She is also widely known for her work on decision-making and is lecturer or consultant on choice at institutions ranging from video-gaming to pharmaceuticals, the U.S. Navy, World Bank, and CIA.[4][5][6][7]
Chang's principal research interests lie in normative ethics, metaethics, action theory and moral psychology. Her work focuses on practical conflict, the nature of reasons and values and their relations, and rational agency. She is known for arguing that the structure of value is not what is commonly assumed: like space and time, which is not structured as we think it is, the normative and evaluative realm is not structured as we think it is. In particular, she is known for arguing that two items which are neither better nor worse than one another and yet not equally good may nevertheless be comparable: they may be 'on a par'.[16][2] If correct, her view has wide-ranging implications for axiology, normative theory, decision theory, economic choice theory, and rationality. Her work also develops a view of rational agency, 'hybrid voluntarism', according to which rational agents are not merely discoverers of reasons but creators of them through the activity of commitment.[17] She has also written on value pluralism and social choice. She has given various public lectures on decision-making, love, and commitment.
Chang is the author of Making Comparisons Count, and the editor of the first volume on the topic of incommensurability of values in the Anglo-American world, Incommensurability, Incomparability, and Practical Reason,[18] and has authored articles and book chapters.
Ruth Chang is also widely known for her work on 'hard choices' and decision-making, and her research has been the subject of radio, newspaper, and magazine articles.[19]
"The Possibility of Parity" 112 Ethics July 2002, pp. 659–88.
"All Things Considered" 18 Philosophical Perspectives, December 2004, pp. 1–22
"Voluntarist Reasons and the Sources of Normativity", Reasons for Action eds., Sobel and Wall, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), pp. 243–71
"Commitments, Reasons, and the Will", in Shafer-Landau, ed., Oxford Studies in Metaethics, vol. 8, 2013
^ abHsieh, Nien-hê. "Incommensurable Values". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 16 January 2013.
^Schroeder, Mark. "Value Theory". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Stanford. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013. Retrieved 16 January 2013.