Nigel Biggar, Oxford, UK

Nigel Biggar was recently named as one of the world’s top thinkers by Prospect Magazine of the UK, because “Biggar’s willingness to question prevailing ideologies and contextualise moral concerns within a historical framework make him a valuable thinker in our polarised times.” He has been described as “one of the leading living Western ethicists” (by John Gray, formerly Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics, New Statesman, 25 November 2020). He was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) “for services to higher education” in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.

Nigel Biggar is an Anglican priest, theologian and ethicist, Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford and Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Pusey House, Oxford. He holds a B.A. in Modern History from Oxford and a Ph.D. in Christian Theology & Ethics from the University of Chicago.

Nigel Biggar was also an adjunct instructor at the ELO Oxford Leadership Program in 2024. 

Some of his books include: Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning (2023), What’s Wrong with Rights? (2020), In Defence of War (2013), Between Kin and Cosmopolis: An Ethic of the Nation (2014) and Behaving in Public: How to do Christian Ethics(2011).

In the press, he has written on the Israel-Hamas conflict in the Spectator (London), colonialism in the National Post (Toronto), freedom of speech in the Times (London), the ‘Culture Wars’ and illegal migration in the Daily Telegraph (London), the Iraq War in the Financial Times (London) and the Straits Times (Singapore), and the possibility of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Northern Ireland in the Irish Times (Dublin).

He has lectured at the Royal College of Defence Studies, London; the UK Defence Academy, Shrivenham; the Führungsakademie der Bundeswehr, Hamburg; the US Military Academy, West Point; the US Naval Academy, Annapolis; and the National Defense University, Washington, DC.