Allen Buchanan, Laureate Professor of Philosophy and Freedom Center Research Professor, is among eight scholars whose publications have made the inaugural Al-Rodhan Transdisciplinary Philosophy Book Prize 2023 Longlist. Buchanan’s book, Our Moral Fate: Evolution and the Escape from Tribalism is “A provocative and probing argument showing how human beings can for the first time in history take charge of their moral fate,” according to the publisher, MIT Press Direct.

Allen’s primary research is Philosophy of International Law, Bioethics, and Political Philosophy. His B.A. is from Columbia University, and his Ph.D. is from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Allen has participated in policy-making processes at the highest levels, including serving on the Advisory Council for the Human Genome Project, as a Staff Philosopher or consultant for all the Presidential Bioethics Commissions, as a consultant to the Transitional Government of Ethiopia on the writing of the secession clause, and as a consultant on self-determination issues to the Government of Canada, the President of Catalonia, the European High Commissioner on National Minorities, and the U.S. State Department. 

The Royal Institute of Philosophy created the Nayef Al-Rodham Book Prize in Transdisciplinary Philosophy to reward, “the most original philosophical research that transcends academic disciplines.” The prize includes a £20,000 award.

“We welcome philosophical work that transcends academic boundaries and furthers our understanding of the key challenges facing the world today and that may face us in the future. The work may be from philosophers, neuroscientists, social scientists, or from other disciplines,” reads the Nayef Al-Rodhan Book Prize description.

Read the Daily Nous article that includes the entire 2023 Longlist of finalists.