Dr Philip Cook
Sabbatical Fellow, January - April 2026
Home Institution: University of Edinburgh
Dr Philip Cook is Senior Lecturer in political philosophy at the School of Social and Political Science. Philip’s work focuses on the moral and political status of children. His current research concerns justice in schools and education. Previous work has addressed the ethics of parenting, the moral aspects of child labour, and justifications for child enfranchisement. Philip was a founding Co-Director of CRITIQUE: Centre for Ethics and Critical Thought, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal Res Publica. Philip has enjoyed presenting his research to public audiences through appearances at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe and Edinburgh Science Festival.
Project title: How Should We Think of Justice in Schooling?
Intuitively, we know that education and schooling are different. We can endure schooling without learning much; we can learn much beyond school, through work and play. Though intuitive, this difference is largely unexplored philosophically. Why should this matter? Because our understanding of children’s entitlements of social justice is stunted by an intuitive, and not philosophical, grasp of this distinction. A school may provide excellent education to all its children: equally good opportunities for learning and uniform success in qualifications. However, if this school also segregated its pupils wrongfully, perhaps according to race or religion, we would likely find such segregation unjust. But if there is no injustice in educational opportunities and outcomes, then how should we explain our intuition that the school treats its children unjustly? My research aims to explain this intuition through a new account of ‘schooling justice’, distinct from any matters of educational justice or injustice.
My work developing a conception of schooling justice has raised many puzzles about how to think about justice in schools. What are schools? How should we combine values and evidence in analysing the moral aspects of schooling? These foundational and methodological questions are receiving greater attention among scholars devoted to understanding the moral and political aspects of education. During my Sabbatical Fellowship, alongside my individual research on justice in schooling, I will be leading a Philosophy of Education Society of Great Britain grant on the ‘Foundations and Methods of Moral Analysis in Education.’ This project brings together an international network of scholars with shared interests in developing a better understanding of the assumptions and tools best suited to analyse the moral aspects of education. From January 2026, I will be hosting a series of seminars culminating in a workshop in Edinburgh in June 2026, which aims to cast some light on how we should think of justice in schooling.