Sample Page

Heather Widdows (born 29 August 1972) is a British philosopher, specialising in applied ethics. She was at the University of Birmingham for 22 years, beginning as research fellow and finishing as Pro-Vice-Chancellor (Research and Knowledge Transfer).^[1] She is currently a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick.^[2] Her research is in the areas of global ethics, feminist philosophy, and philosophy of health and bioethics. In 2005, she was awarded a visiting fellowship at Harvard University.

Her most recent book, Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton University Press, 2018), explores how the nature of the beauty ideal is changing – becoming more dominant, demanding and global than ever before.^[3] Widdows argues that to address the harms caused by the beauty ideal, we must first understand its ethical nature. Vogue described the book as “groundbreaking”,^[4] and writer and journalist Bri Lee included Perfect Me in her article Books That Changed Me.^[5]

Widdows did her undergraduate degree Systematic Theology first class^[6] and PhD at the University of Edinburgh. She completed her PhD thesis in 1999 on “The relationship of morality and religion : an investigation of the issue in modern anglophone philosophy”. She was supervised by Professor James P. Mackey and Ronald Hepburn. Following the completion of her PhD, spent a year as a post-doctoral research fellow at Imperial College London. She became part of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham as a research fellow in the Centre for the Study of Global Ethics in 2001. Widdows continued to work there until 2022, becoming a lecturer in 2003, senior lecturer in 2005, and professor of global ethics in 2009. She became the deputy Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research Impact in 2017, and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research and Knowledge transfer in 2021. In 2022 became a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Warwick.

Widdows is currently the deputy chair of the REF2021 Philosophy sub-panel. Previously she was a member of the REF2014 Philosophy sub-panel.

Heather served as a member of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics from 2014 to 2020 and previously on the UK Biobank Ethics and Governance Council from 2007 to 2013,^[7] and a member of Nuffield Council on Bioethics Working Party on Cosmetic Procedures from 2015 to 2016.^[8]

Heather’s work on appearance-based discrimination, or lookism, was also cited in the Women and Equalities Committee inquiry into ‘Changing the perfect picture: an inquiry into body image’.^[9]

She has published four sole-authored books: The Moral Vision of Iris Murdoch (Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2006); Global Ethics: An Introduction (Acumen, 2011); The Connected Self: The Ethics and Governance of the Genetic Individual (Cambridge University Press, 2013) and most recently Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton University Press, 2018).

Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton University Press) was published in 2018. Widdows was supported in writing this book by a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship. In Perfect Me Widdows argues that beauty is functioning as ethical ideal, transforming our understandings of the world, our judgements of others and ourselves.^[10] Perfect Me was also voted one of the 19 best books of 2018 by The Atlantic,^[11] and one of the 100 best books to read in a lifetime by Edarabia.^[12] Perfect Me has also been mentioned in Vogue,^[13] Vogue Japan^[14] and Paper Magazine.^[15][16]

Widdows is a co-founder of the Beauty Demands Network.^[17] The project began with an AHRC Network Grant on ‘The Changing Requirements of Beauty’ which finished in June 2016. Beauty Demands publishes a blog every two weeks (co-run by Widdows and Dr Fiona MacCallum, University of Warwick),^[18] and in 2016 published a Briefing Paper. The briefing paper contains key findings of the network in ethics, psychology and law, and makes policy recommendations based upon these.^[19] The briefing paper was launched at the Nuffield Council on Bioethics in June 2016.^[20]

Widdows launched a social media campaign to end body shaming at the Annual Global Ethics Conference at the University of Birmingham in June 2019.^[21] Widdows argues that lookism is a prejudice that is more prevalent and more damaging in a virtual culture where our bodies are ourselves. Body shaming is shaming people. Lookism has become so common that we have come to accept it, and even worse, expect it.^[22] The campaign asks people to share their lookism stories on social media using the hashtag or anonymously via the website. #everydaylookism has been mentioned by The Telegraph,^[23] Birmingham Live.^[24] and The Body Cons Podcast.^[25]

Heather has been quoted in The Guardian,^[26][27] the New York Times,^[28] Vogue,^[29] BBC Newsround,^[30] Seventeen.^[31] and Le Monde.^[32] She has also appeared on BBC Two‘s Victoria Derbyshire programme, and been interviewed by BBC Radio 4 and ABC Radio (Australia).

In addition to her books, Widdows has published numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals and chapters in edited collections.

• Perfect Me: Beauty as an Ethical Ideal (Princeton University Press, 2018)
• The Connected Self: The Ethics and Governance of the Genetic Individual (Cambridge University Press, 2013).
• Global Ethics: An Introduction (Acumen, 2011).
• The Moral Vision of Iris Murdoch (Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2006).

• Handbook of Global Ethics, Edited with Darrel Moellendorf [de] (Routledge, 2014)
• Global Social Justice, Edited with Nicola Smith (Routledge, 2011).
• The Governance of Genetic Information: Who Decides?, Edited with Caroline Mullen (Cambridge University Press, 2008).
• Women’s Reproductive Rights, Edited with Itziar Alkorta Idiakez and Aitziber Emaldi Cirión (Palgrave, 2006).

• Heather Widdows Archived 19 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine at University of Birmingham
• Heather Widdows at IMDb