Gerald Allan Cohen FBA (/ˈkoʊən/ KOH-ən; 14 April 1941 – 5 August 2009) was a Canadian political philosopher who held the positions of Quain Professor of Jurisprudence, University College London and Chichele Professor of Social and Political Theory, All Souls College, Oxford.
Born into a communist Jewish family in Montreal, Quebec, on 14 April 1941,[6] Cohen was educated at McGill University (BA, philosophy and political science) in his hometown and the University of Oxford (BPhil, philosophy), where he studied under Gilbert Ryle (and was also taught by Isaiah Berlin).
Several of his students, such as Christopher Bertram, Simon Caney, Alan Carter, Cécile Fabre, Will Kymlicka, John McMurtry, David Leopold, Michael Otsuka, Seana Shiffrin, and Jonathan Wolff went on to be important moral and political philosophers, while another, Ricky Gervais, has a successful career in comedy.
(which covers the topic of his Gifford Lectures), Cohen addresses the question of what egalitarian political principles imply for the personal behaviour of those who hold them.
According to his best friend, the philosopher Gerald Dworkin, "Nothing was too inappropriate, private, bizarre, or embarrassing to be suddenly brought into the conversation".