On December 20, 2024, King Charles signified his intention to confer a life peerage on Nigel Biggar. He will be in the House of Lords as part of the Conservative Party representation.
Nigel Biggar was an Adjunct Instructor in the ELO Oxford Leadership Program 2024 and will be joining us again in 2025 (August 10th – 16th). Biggar is an Anglican priest, theologian, ethicist, and Emeritus Regius Professor of Moral Theology at the University of Oxford.
Biggar provides a great study of a determined and consistent scholarly focus and a willingness to engage in debates with vociferous opponents. He has endured with aplomb the attacks on his credibility, professionalism, and character by peers at the University of Oxford and elsewhere.
Why was there a hubbub around Biggar? In 2017, Biggar initiated a five-year project at Oxford University, entitled "Ethics and Empire." Its aim was to consider empires from ancient China to the modern period and to examine whether people in the past viewed empires as we do now, and, if not, why. The project did not assume that empire is always and everywhere an illegitimate form of government. However, this exercise in discerning facts and truth was viewed as tainted from the outset by adversaries whose ideology had led them to a contrary conclusion.
A gaggle of historians and academics criticized the project, claiming that it was "attempting to balance out the violence committed in the name of empire with its supposed benefits." The project also received criticism for allegedly failing to engage with the wider scholarship on empire and not submitting itself to peer scrutiny and rigorous academic debate. Apparently Biggar's academic chops were not up to snuff.
Rather than shirk from this attempted cancellation by the academic mob, Biggar committed to fight the good fight. He addressed the ethics of colonialism in various media outlets. For example, in an op-ed for The London Times, arguing that the history of the British Empire was morally mixed and that guilt around Britain's colonial legacy may have gone too far.
Biggar's recent book, Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, which examines the morality of colonialism, was initially accepted by Bloomsbury, but it chose not to publish it. Their suggestion was that "public feeling on the subject does not currently support the publication of the book." It was eventually published by HarperCollins in 2023. The book has received both praise and criticism.
Having seen first-hand the threat to free speech and academic inquiry posed by woke idealogues, Biggar has become a champion for those wishing to uphold the principles of empiricism and rational discussion against tiresome cancel culture.
Despite sniping from the cheap seats, Biggar’s consistently analytical approach has been positively recognized. Biggar was recently named 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, former Professor of European Thought at the London School of Economics (New Statesman, November 25, 2020). Biggar was appointed Commander of the British Empire (CBE) “for services to higher education” in the 2021 Queen’s Birthday Honours list.
And now he will be in the House of Lords. With respect to his recent appointment as a Lord, Biggar put it to me well: "This appointment marks the culmination of a journey of over four decades through academe and the Christian church into the heart of public life in the UK, and I count myself blessed to have lived to see the day. I look forward to putting my shoulder to the wheel of renewing Conservative thinking."
Read more on Nigel Biggar:
Notable Books of 2024: Peterson, Biggar, Sharma, et al.
Nigel Biggar: The Woke Antidote & Critical Thinking for Leaders
Nigel Biggar, Top World Thinker, to Instruct at ELO Oxford Leadership Program 2024