Kurt Baier (26 January 1917 – 7 November 2010)[1] was an Austrian moral philosopher who taught for most of his career in Australia and the United States.
[2] In 1938, after the Anschluss he had to abandon his studies, and went to the United Kingdom as a refugee, where he was interned as a "friendly enemy alien" and sent to Australia on the Dunera.
[1] He became president of the Eastern Division and chair of the National Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association, Both Baiers gave the Paul Carus lectures.
[5] In 2001, Kurt was awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Jurisprudence from the Karl Franzen University of Graz.
His original strategy was to find certain nonquestion-begging requirements of practical reason that then could be shown to favor morality over egoism.
While making many contributions to the conceptual analysis of basic concepts in moral, political and legal philosophy such as those of obligation, responsibility, reason for action, egoism and the meaning of life, and also to applied ethics, Baier struggled with the fundamental question of how to justify morality throughout his career.