Simon Keller, professor of philosophy and head of the School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, has been elected as a fellow of the Royal Society Te Apārangi (formerly known as the Royal Society of New Zealand).

The mission of the Royal Society is to “honour, recognise and encourage outstanding achievement in the sciences, technologies and humanities”.

The society announced its most recent class of fellows yesterday, describing their work. Of Professor Keller, they write:

Simon Keller is a philosopher who specialises in ethics, political philosophy, and the philosophy of mental health and disorder. He has written extensively about the moral and political dimensions of relationships, examining family relationships, friendships, erotic love, and patriotism. His work on mental health looks at the assumptions that lie behind our ways of dividing mental conditions into the healthy and the unhealthy, and the links between mental health and the living of a good human life. In other work, Keller explores such topics as well-being (“welfare”), political freedom, equality, the significance of death, and the way we form beliefs about science. Unifying his work is a concern with how small, often unnoticed details of human life are amplified so as to become powerful political and social forces. He is the author of The Limits of Loyalty (winner of the American Philosophical Association Book Prize) and Partiality, and a co-author of The Ethics of Patriotism: A Debate. He is Professor of Philosophy at Te Herenga Waka – Victoria University of Wellington, having worked previously at Boston University and University of Melbourne. He has held visiting fellowships at Harvard University, Rice University, and LMU Munich.

Keller is the only philosopher among the 34 new fellows. You can learn more about his work here.

(via Michael Smith)