Born in Bristol, England, in 1943, Hursthouse spent her childhood in New Zealand. Her aunt Mary studied philosophy and when her father asked her what that was all about, he could not understand her answer. Rosalind, 17 at the time, knew immediately that she wanted to study philosophy, too, and enrolled the next year. She taught for many years at the Open University in England. She was head of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Auckland from 2002 to 2005. Though she had written a substantial amount previously, Hursthouse entered the international philosophical scene for the first time in 1990–91, with three articles: Hursthouse, who was mentored by Elizabeth Anscombe and Philippa Foot, is best known as a virtue ethicist. Hursthouse's work is deeply grounded in the history of philosophy, and especially in Aristotle's ethics, about which she has written extensively. She has also emphasised the practical nature of virtue ethics in her books Beginning Lives and Ethics, Humans, and Other Animals. Her most substantial contribution to modern virtue ethics is her book On Virtue Ethics, which explores its structure as a distinctive action-guiding theory, the relationship between virtue, the emotions and moral motivation, and the place of the virtues within an overall account of human flourishing. It also expands Hursthouse's formulation of right action in terms of what a virtuous person would characteristically do in a situation. In 2016, Hursthouse was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Select publications
'The Central Doctrine of the Mean' in , ed. Richard Kraut, Blackwell, 2006, pp. 96–115.
'Are Virtues the Proper Starting Point for Ethical Theory?' in Contemporary Debates in Moral Theory, ed. James Dreier, Blackwell, 2006, pp. 99–112.
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'Virtue Ethics vs Rule-Consequentialism: A Reply to Brad Hooker', Utilitas Vol 14, March 2002 pp 41–53.
, Routledge, 2000.
On Virtue Ethics, Oxford University Press, 1999. For the author's account of how this book came to be written, go to
'Virtue and Human Nature' in Hume Studies double issue, Nov.1999/Feb.2000.
'The Virtuous Agent's Reasons: a reply to Bernard Williams' in the Proceedings of the Keeling Colloquium on Aristotle on Moral Realism, ed. Robert Heinaman, UCL Press, 1995.
'Normative Virtue Ethics' in How Should One Live? ed. Roger Crisp, OUP, 1995.
in Virtues and Reasons, Festschrift for Philippa Foot, eds. Rosalind Hursthouse, Gavin Lawrence, Warren Quinn, OUP, 1995.
