Dr Piers Benn
philosopher, author and lecturer

Dr Piers Benn teaches philosophy at Fordham University London Centre and, until recently, the University of Roehampton. He is a visiting lecturer at the Margaret Beaufort Institute, Cambridge, and a visiting research associate at Trinity College Dublin. Previously he lectured in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, and the universities of Leeds and St Andrews. He has also lectured in medical ethics at Imperial College London and King’s College London. His interests include ethics, philosophy of religion and philosophical issues in the culture wars, especially free enquiry and speech.

During the 1990s, he organised seminars for students in Poland and the Czech Republic, in collaboration with host institutions struggling to rebuild education after the communist period. He writes for both academic and wider audiences and has made several appearances on the British media, including as a news reviewer for Sky News and GB News. In 2022 he contributed to Cambridge University’s free speech training initiative. In 2025, he helped to start a similar discussion at Trinity College Dublin.

His latest book, Intellectual Freedom and the Culture Wars, was published by Palgrave in 2020. He is the author of an essay on ethics, comedy and free speech for the journal of the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

Follow Piers on X:@PiersBenn

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