Julia Annas

Julia Elizabeth Annas (born 1946) is a British philosopher who has taught in the United States for the last quarter-century. She is Regents Professor of Philosophy at the University of Arizona.

Annas graduated from Oxford University in 1968 with a B.A., and from Harvard University with an A.M. (1970) and a Ph.D. (1972). She was a Fellow and Tutor at St Hugh's College, Oxford for fifteen years, before joining the faculty at Arizona in 1986, where she has taught since, apart for one year as a professor at Columbia University. She concentrates on the study of ancient Greek philosophy, including Ethics, Psychology and Epistemology. Her current research interests are in Platonic ethics. She was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1992, and a Fellow of the American Philosophical Society in 2013. She is the founder and former editor of the annual journal, Oxford Studies in Ancient Philosophy. She is married to the Hume scholar, David Owen, also a professor of philosophy at the University of Arizona.

Julia Annas has advocated ethics based on character, building on ideas attributed to Greek philosopher, Aristotle and making them relevant for contemporary moral discourse. She has argued that being virtuous involves “practical reasoning” which can be compared to the “exercising of a practical skill”. Hence, she argues, rather than relating virtues to rules, principles, or an end goal, Annas says, first, people should ask how they can improve their moral “skills”.