Uehiro Oxford Prize - past winners | The Uehiro Oxford Institute

Judges and finalists of the 2024 Oxford Uehiro Prize in Practical Ethics

Judges and Finalists (L-R): Ayesha Chakravarti, Dr Cristina Voinea, Jakob Lohmar, Prof Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Theo Naylor, Prof Roger Crisp, Wyatt Radzin

Please join us in congratulating all four of the finalists in the 10th National Uehiro Oxford Prize in Practical Ethics 2024, and in particular our winners, Wyatt Radzin and Jakob Lohmar. We would also like to thank our judges, Prof Roger Crisp, Prof Walter Sinnott-Armstrong and Dr Cristina Voinea.

The final was held on the 12^th March in the Seminar Room of the Faculty of Philosophy, as well as online. During the final the four finalists presented their papers and ideas to an audience and responded to a short Q&A as the deciding round in the competition. A selection of the winning essays and honourable mentions will be published on the Practical Ethics Blog.

See list of winners and runners up below.

Undergraduate Category

Winner: Wyatt Radzin: How to Say Things With Acts: Consumption as Language.

Runner Up: Ayesha Chakravarti: Feminist in the streets, sadomasochist in the sheets: Are you morally aligning yourself with women’s subordination if you engage in consensually inegalitarian sexual relationships?

Honourable Mentions: David Logan: When Eating Meat is OK: A Defence of Benign Carnivorism

Gabriel McWilliams: To What Extent Has Aristotle’s Conception of a Virtuous Character Remained Relevant in the Face of Situationist Criticism?

Graduate Category

Winner: Jakob Lohmar: The Moral Importance of Low Welfare Species

Runner Up: Theodore Naylor: Do Living-Wills Have Autonomous Authority When Applied to Patients in Advanced Stages of Dementia?

Honourable Mentions: Alexander (Sasha) Arridge: In Defence of Defensive Prejudice: Why We Should Believe That Men Are Trash

Esther Braun: Should We Prohibit Mitochondrial Replacement Techniques for Treating Infertility?

Beatrice Marchegiani: Undisclosed Conversational AIs: A Threat to Users’ Autonomy

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9th National Uehiro Oxford Prize in Practical Ethics - 2023

Undergraduate Category

Winner: Lukas Joosten, “Turning up the Hedonic Treadmill: Is it Morally Impermissible for Parents to Give Their Children a Luxurious Standard of Living?”

Runner Up: Chase Mizzell, “Against Using AI to Influence Our Future Selves in Ways That Bypass or Subvert Rationality”

Honourable Mentions:

James French: How can we address the gender gap in anaesthesia and the wider medical workplace?

Leah O’Grady, “What is wrong with stating slurs?”

Tanae Rao, “Why the Responsibility Gap is Not a Compelling Objection to Lethal Autonomous Weapons”

Maria Rotaru, “Causal links and duties to past, present, and future generations: why and to whom do the affluent have moral obligations?”

Graduate Category

Winner: Avital Fried, “Criminal Confessions and Content-Sensitive Testimonial Injustice”

Runner Up: Leora Urim Sung, “Should I Give or Save?”

Honourable Mentions:

Samuel Iglesias, “Ethical Biological Naturalism and the Case Against Moral Status for AIs”

Thomas Long, “The Ambiguous Ethicality of Applause: Ethnography’s Uncomfortable Challenge to the Ethical Subject”

Pablo Neira, “Why Preventing Predation Can Be a Morally Right Cause for Effective Altruism?”

Kyle van Oosterum, “How Confucian Harmony Can Help Us Deal With Echo Chambers”

Trenton Andrew Sewell, “Should Social Media Companies Use Artificial Intelligence to Automate Content Moderation on their Platforms and, if so, Under What Conditions?”

James Shearer, “Do we have an Obligation to Diversify our Media Consumption?”

Lucy Simpson, “Why Our Actions Matter: The Case for Fluid Moral Status.”

8th National Uehiro Oxford Prize in Practical Ethics - 2022

Undergraduate Category

Winner: Matthew Price - Why We Should Negatively Discount the Well-Being of Future Generations

Runner Up: Leo Rogers - Terra nullius, populus sine terra: who may settle Antarctica?

Honourable Mentions: Lukas Joosten - When Money Can’t Buy Happiness: Does Our Duty to Assist the Needy Require Us to Befriend the Lonely?

Alexander Scoby - Why don’t we just let the wise rule?!

Graduate Category

Winner: Lily Moore-Eissenberg - Legal Proof and Structural Injustice: Should jurors be given information about structural racism?

Runner Up: Avital Fried - Statistical Evidence and the Criminal Verdict Asymmetry

Honourable Mentions: Lise du Buisson - How should career choice ethics address ignorance-related harms?

Kabir Singh Bakshi - Against Broome’s ‘Against Denialism’

7th Uehiro Oxford Prize in Practical Ethics - 2021

Undergraduate Category

Winner: Imogen Rivers: Against Making a Difference

Runner Up:Tanae Rao: Why, if at all, is it unethical for universities to prioritise applicants related to their alumni

Honourable Mention: Edward Lamb: ‘Rational Departure’: What Does Stoicism Reveal About Contemporary Attitudes Towards Suicide?

Graduate Category

Winner: Lily Moore-Eissenberg: Causing People to Exist and Compensating Existing People. Does the nonidentity problem undermine the case for reparations?

Joint Runners Up:

Rebecca L Clark: Should Feminists endorse a Universal Basic Income;

Oshmita Ray: May the use of violent civil disobedience be justified as a response to institutional racism?

Honourable Mention: Jules Desai: Is there a moral difference between Corpses biological and artificial?

6th Uehiro Oxford Prize in Practical Ethics - 2020

Undergraduate Category

Winner: Eric Sheng: Why is virtual wrongdoing morally disquieting, insofar as it is?

Runner Up: Toby S. Lowther: Can science ethically make use of data which was gathered by unethical means?

Honourable Mention: Angelo Ryu: What, if anything, is wrong about algorithmic administration?

Graduate Category

Winner: Maya Krishnan: Can it be wrong for victims to report crimes?

Runner Up: Matthew John Minehan: Post-Sally and the minimally conscious mollusc

Honourable Mentions:

Brian Wong: An account of attitudinal duties towards injustice (Graduate)

Tess Johnson: Enhancing the Critique: What’s wrong with the collectivist critique and what can the relational approach contribute? (Graduate)

Tena Thau: Effective Altruism and Intersectional Feminism (Graduate)

5th Uehiro Oxford Prize in Practical Ethics - 2019

Undergraduate Category

Winner: Harry Lloyd with his essay “What, if anything, is objectionable about gentrification?”

Runner Up: Angelo Ryu with his essay “Do Jurors Have a Moral Obligation to Avoid Deadlock?”

Graduate Category

Winner: Tena Thau with her essay “Love Drugs and Expanding the Romantic Circle”

Joint Runners Up: Miles Kellerman with his essay “The Ethical Dilemma of Disclosing Offshore Accounts” and Brian Wong with his essay “Should We Contact Uncontacted Peoples?: A Case for a Samaritan Rescue Principle”

Honourable Mentions:

Maximilian Kiener: “Consent and Causation”

Michelle Lee: “Practical Ethics of Machine Learning and Discriminatory Lending”

Robert Underwood: “Killing to Communicate”