Joseph's longtime partner, Penelope Bulloch, kindly gave permission to share this message she had sent to various friends (earlier memorial notice):
Joseph did not want a funeral.
He left his body to the London Anatomy Office, for education or research, and it has been accepted. They know he was a Professor, and told me ‘now he can go on teaching’.
Plato makes Socrates, on trial for his life, tell the jury why he will not stop talking about philosophy: ‘it is the greatest good for a man to discuss virtue every day and those other things about which you hear me conversing and testing myself and others, for the unexamined life is not worth living’ (Apology 37e-38a).
Talking philosophy with students and colleagues was at the centre of Joseph’s life and he continued his seminars at Columbia Law School until the end of 2018, after which he no longer had the strength to continue. From 2020 the seminar series he gave with Ulrike Heuer at University College London enabled him to carry on the discussions, initially following the format he had developed at Columbia and later on Zoom due to the pandemic and as he grew weaker. The seminars covered questions on Practical Reasons and Normativity: ‘Reasons and Rationality’ (2020), ‘The Role of History for Understanding Normativity’ (2021), and ‘Normative Powers’ (2022). Like all Joseph’s work, they dealt with major problems: Can morality change? Does the existence of a normative power (e.g. to make a promise or enact a law) depend on the desirability of someone having that power?
Medical students face other problems, and the questions his body will make them confront are different. But that’s what he wanted to be involved with: posing questions.
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