Girton's Resident Thinker Gets Oxford's attention

Girton’s Thinker in Residence, and author of Evil Online, Dr Dean Cocking, has confirmed that Oxford University will host a symposium to examine the major themes of his book.

Dr Cocking launched his book last year at Girton, with one of the world’s leading moral philosophers, Professor Roger Crisp, Professor of Moral Philosophy, St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. The book is co-authored by Professor Jeroen van den Hoven from the Netherlands, and it provides the first comprehensive analysis of the explosion of evil in our new online world. The book also develops a new theory of evil based on how ordinary people can go astray.

The Oxford symposium will entail three world class philosophers critiquing Evil Online and publishing articles about the book’s key themes in Oxford’s Journal of Practical Ethics. It is the first time that the renowned journal has been the subject of a symposium. The journal only features two editions per year and the symposium on Evil Online will occupy one whole edition.

In another coup for Dr Cocking, an international conference will be organised between Oxford and Delft University of Technology in May 2020 with Evil Online as the focal point.

We congratulate Dr Cocking on these successes and look forward to his further work at the School with students and with the Student Wellbeing team.