Sir Ralph Wedgwood, 4th Baronet


Sir Ralph Nicholas Wedgwood, 4th Baronet is a British philosopher currently Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southern California.

Life and career

Wedgwood was born in Vancouver, British Columbia, the only son of Martin Wedgwood, later 3rd Baronet, and his wife the architectural historian Alexandra, daughter of the judge and crime novelist, Alfred Gordon Clark. He was named after his great-grandfather, Sir Ralph Wedgwood, 1st Baronet; his first name is pronounced /ˈreɪf/. Wedgwood is a descendant of the master potter Josiah Wedgwood. He inherited the Wedgwood Baronetcy of Etruria upon the death of his father on 12 October 2010. The heir presumptive to the Baronetcy is John Julian Wedgwood, son of the 2nd Baronet.
Wedgwood was educated at Westminster School, before entering Magdalen College, Oxford and taking a BA in Classics and Modern Languages, followed by studies at King's College London, and Cornell University, New York. He was appointed Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1995, becoming an Associate Professor in 1999. From 2002, Wedgwood acted as a Lecturer and Fellow in Philosophy at Merton College, Oxford, and was promoted to full professorship in 2007. At the beginning of 2012 he moved to the University of Southern California in Los Angeles as Professor of Philosophy.

Philosophical work

Wedgwood works primarily on topics in ethics and epistemology. He is the author of The Nature of Normativity, and numerous papers on philosophy and ethics, including the oft-cited paper The Fundamental Argument for Same-Sex Marriage, which argues for the legitimacy of same-sex marriage. He has also written a piece on the same subject for the New York Times.