His father, also named Thomas E. Hill, was a moral philosopher who was deeply influenced by the work of G. E. Moore.
Their family lived mainly in St. Paul, Minnesota, where Hill's father taught philosophy for many years at Macalester College.
Sharon Bishop also received her PhD from Harvard, in 1968, and taught philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles.
[4] Hill is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences,[5] and gave the Tanner Lectures on Human Values in 1994.
In his article “The Hypothetical Imperative” (1973) he argues that Kant presupposes an unconditionally necessary (a priori) principle of practical reasoning that goes beyond morality but always leaves us with the option of abandoning our purposes rather than taking the necessary means to them.
[15] And his "Ideals of Human Excellence and Preserving Natural Environments" (1983) addresses certain environmental issues by considering what kind of person would treat the environment in various ways instead of directly addressing the standard problems of cost-benefit analysis, the intrinsic value of nature and anthropocentrism.