National Uehiro Oxford Essay Prize in Practical Ethics

The National Uehiro Oxford Essay Prize in Practical Ethics is an annual competition held in the Spring. It is open to all Undergraduate and Post Graduate Students enrolled in UK universities.

Students are invited to enter by submitting an essay of up to 2000 words on any topic relevant to practical ethics.

Practical ethics is concerned with what we should do in any given situation. It reflects on personal, professional, policy, and social choices and structures and holds them up to scrutiny. It may balance or prioritise different values and interests.

Two undergraduate papers and two graduate papers will be shortlisted from those submitted to go forward to a public presentation and discussion, where the winner of each category will be selected.  

The winner from each category will receive a prize of £500, and the runner up £200. Revised versions of the two winning essays will be considered for publication in the Journal of Practical Ethics.

How to take part and T&Cs     See past winners

The competition is now closed for 2025, and information about the shortlisted entries and the final presentation can be found below. 

Time and date

Tuesday 18th March, 5:30pm – 7:45pm. 

Venue

The Final will be held in the Tsuzuki Lecture Theatre, St Anne's College, 56 Woodstock Road, Oxford OX2 6HS, followed by a drinks reception until 7:45 pm.

Register to attend

All are welcome to attend the final and are warmly invited to join the finalists for a drinks reception after the event.  Please register by the 18th March.

Register to attend in-person 

If you are unable to join the event in person, the presentation section will be presented as a hybrid zoom webinar.

Register for the Zoom webinar

The Finalists

Undergraduate Finalists

Elizabeth McCabe: Silencing Queer Signals: How cultural misuse prevents the expression of queerness 

Rahul Lakhanpaul: Social Media, Epistemic Threats, and the Threat to Autonomy

Graduate Finalists

Esther Braun: Are requests for assisted dying motivated by poverty autonomous?

Arjan Heir: Promises and Consent: The Moral Permissibility of Accepting a Promise to Perform an Act That Requires Contemporaneous Consent

Honourable Mention

Undergraduate:

Artur Littner: The Duty to Have Courage: Developing the Theory of Epistemic Injustice
Nicole Chinenyenwa Oboko: Bring Back Shame: Does the Ethical Value of Shame Justify Shaming?

Graduate:

Sasha Arridge: “You nearly killed me!” Casual Contribution and Responsibility For Things That Don’t Happen
Edward Lamb: Justifying exclusion from public sport
Beatrice Marchegiani: An autonomy-based argument for the permissibility of (some) prenatal injuries