Professor Roger Vernon Scruton (born 27 February 1944) is a leading British academic philosopher, and founder of Claridge Press .

Scruton was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge before researching and then lecturing in philosophy at Birkbeck College, London. When in England, he lives with his family on his farm in Brinkworth , Wiltshire.

As one of England's few remaining public intellectuals of weight, he is also a broadcaster, commentator, activist on countryside issues, a journalist, and a contributing editor of the City Journal. His first publication - "Art and Imagination" - was a sophisticated exploration of aesthetics, written in language that would have been very difficult for non-academics to understand. Since then, he has written on practically every topic in philosophy, usually in much clearer language. Kant has been held in particularly high regard. Some have identified a "pick-and-choose" attitude by Scruton towards Kant's ideas; he criticises Kantian ethics in "The Meaning of Conservatism" as being too individualistic, but, in his other works, he employs Kant's views on sexuality and animal rights to support his own arguments.

His right-wing political views, expounded in the conservative quarterly Salisbury Review and elsewhere, earned him a reputation as a controversial figure. He has since added further enmity, due to his public support for fox hunting with hounds, and his book Animal Rights and Wrongs. "The Meaning of Conservatism" was, to some extent, a reaction to the growth of liberalism in the Conservative Party. The book focused on economics much less than most Tories of the day and presented reactionary arguments against sex education and the dilution of censorship laws. He has also published novels.

Scruton was a supporter of dissidents in Czechoslovakia when the country was under the rule of the Communist Party.

Public Relations Affair

In early 2002, The Guardian revealed that Scruton had asked one of the world's biggest tobacco companies for £5,500 a month to help his PR company to place pro-smoking articles in some of Britain's most influential newspapers and magazines. In a leaked confidential e-mail to Japan Tobacco International, Scruton proposed a plan to "place an article every two months in one or other of The Wall Street Journal, The Times, The Telegraph, The Spectator, The Financial Times, The Economist, The Independent or The New Statesman." The plan was not taken up.

Selected publications

• Philosophy:

• • Art And Imagination (1974)
  • The Aesthetics Of Architecture (1979)
  • Kant (1982)
  • The Aesthetic Understanding (1983)
  • Sexual Desire: A Moral Philosophy of the Erotic (1986)
  • The Philosopher On Dover Beach (1990)
  • An Intelligent Person's Guide To Philosophy (1996)
  • The Aesthetics Of Music (1997)
  • Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred (2003)

• Politics:

• • The Meaning Of Conservatism (1980)
  • The Politics Of Culture (1981)
  • Dictionary Of Political Thought (1982)
  • Thinkers Of The New Left (1985)
  • Conservative Texts (1992)
  • The West and the Rest: Globalization and the terrorist threat (2002)
  • The Need for Nations (2004)

• Fiction:

• • Fortnight's Anger (1981)
  • Francesca (1991)
  • A Dove Descending and Other Stories (1991)
  • Xanthippic Dialogues (1993)

• Autobiographical/Topographical:

• • On Hunting (1999)
  • England: An Elegy (2000)
  • News From Somewhere: On Settling (2004)

External links

• The Home Page of Roger Scruton
• Salisbury Review Quaterly
• The Guardian article on Scruton & Japan Tobacco International
• Roger Scruton's letter of defence, as published by The Guardian