Scruton, Roger

   b. 1944

   Philosopher

   A prolific writer, critic and broadcaster, Roger Scruton is also a professional philosopher who has commented widely on political theory and aesthetics. Educated at Cambridge, he has taught at the Universities of Bordeaux, where he witnessed the student upheavals of the 1960s, Birkbeck College in London and Boston. Founding The Salisbury Review in the early 1980s, a journal dedicated to conservative thought, his essentially right-wing views have led him to a position of notoriety within academic circles in Britain, though less so in the USA. His essentially Burkean conservatism (The Meaning of Conservatism), his view of sex as that which is permissible only within marriage (Sexual Desire), and his assertion that animals should not be accorded rights (Animal Rights and Wrongs) have done nothing to modify the controversial standing of Britain’s only fox-hunting philosopher.

   See also: philosophy

   PAUL BARRY CLARKE

   LAWRENCE QUILL