Sophie-Grace Chappell

Sophie Grace Chappell (born November 1964) is an English philosopher, academic, and poet. Since 2006, she has been a professor of philosophy at the Open University.

Early life and education Chappell was born in November 1964. She studied Literae humaniores at Magdalen College, Oxford, having been awarded the Anne Shaw Classical Scholarship. She achieved a first in Honour Moderations in March 1986 and an upper second in the Final Honour School in June 1988, thereby graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree.

Academic career In 1991, Chappell returned to the University of Oxford and was a junior research fellow at Wolfson College, Oxford (1991–1994) and a lecturer in philosophy at Merton College, Oxford (1992–1994).

She offers a new definition of the human personhood, inspired by gender role theory. She criticizes the traditional definition of "man" and "woman" based on antenatal biological traits, arguing that the sexual forms of human individuals can be used to identify human animals, but not human personhood. This point of view draws upon the Aristotelian definition of the human being as a political animal, as well as the Christian notion of natural moral law, at least for those aspects which might be differentiated from a gendered perspective.

Chappell introduces a distinction between passive and immediate moral perceptions vs active and step-by-step moral inferences, stating human actions are mainly performed on the basis of ethical intuitions which do not have a logical justification or did not have such a justification at the time they were enacted. Like sense perceptions, moral perceptions can be very vivid, or subjectively perceived as being certain, whilst moral inferences can be independent of their respective phenomenology or vividness. Some judgments might be considered to be moral perceptions because they appear to be "obviously true", self-evident and more certain than any rational argument with pros or cons. An example could be the following statement: "at least in nearly all conceivable cases, it is seriously wrong to torture, steal, rape and murder." In such cases, rational arguments can appear to be unnecessary.

In a 2005 paper on the Theaetetus, Chappell discusses the definition of episteme in five Platonic dialogues, arguing that Plato's work has positively identified human knowledge with judgement (in Greek: doxa) supported by a rational argument for justification (logos). As suggested above, moral perceptions may not always need a rational argument to be justified.

Personal life Chappell is transgender, and transitioned from male to female in 2014. She married in 1988, and has four children. A Philosopher Looks at Friendship (Cambridge University Press, 2024)

Poetry and translations Songs for Winter Rain (Ellipsis Imprints, 2021). The Agamemnon of Aeschylus: A New Translation (Ellipsis Imprints, 2024)