Laurence Houlgate

Laurence Houlgate did his undergraduate work in philosophy at California State University, Los Angeles (CSULA). After the degree in philosophy was approved by the administration in 1960, Houlgate was the first student to graduate from CSULA with a B.A. in Philosophy. His mentor was Henry Alexander. On his recommendation, Laurence enrolled as a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. He later transferred to the University of California, Los Angeles, to study under H. L. A. Hart (Visiting Professor) and Herbert Morris, one of Hart's students at Oxford University and a recent appointee at UCLA. Houlgate received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Philosophy from UCLA in 1965 and 1967, having written his dissertation under Morris's direction.

Houlgate's first full-time appointment was lecturer in philosophy at California State University, Fullerton. After two years, he accepted a position at the University of California, Santa Barbara (1966). He accepted a visiting professorship for one year at Reed College, Oregon (1972–1973), and later accepted an Associate Professor position at George Mason University – GMU, Virginia. He remained at GMU for six years (1973–1979) and in 1979, accepted a position at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, where he was appointed Professor of Philosophy (1980) and served as department chair from 1990 to 1995. He retired from full-time teaching at Cal Poly in 2002 but continued part-time teaching until 2016.

Professor Houlgate's first published works were in the area of philosophy of law. He wrote his Ph.D. dissertation on the general topic of excuses in criminal law, with a special emphasis on the excuses of mistake and ignorance of fact. He later published several articles in philosophical journals based on chapters in the dissertation.

In the next stage of his career, Houlgate spent one academic year as a fellow at the University of Virginia School of Law. He did research on the legal rights of children and later published one of the first philosophical books on this topic (The Child and the State). In subsequent years, he turned to the study of the philosophical foundations of family law and the ethics of family relationships. This research led to a monograph on the philosophy of family law (Family and State), a reader on family ethics (Morals, Marriage and Parenthood), and a collection of his previously published articles (Children's Rights, State Intervention, Custody And Divorce: Contradictions in Ethics And Family Law).

In his post-retirement years, Houlgate twice ran for and won election as the Democratic Party candidate for the California State Assembly. He later lost the general election to the incumbent twice, as had every Democratic candidate in his district during the previous 50 years.

In 2016, Professor Houlgate decided to keep a promise to his former students to write a series of study guides on the classical philosophers. There are now eight of these guides, published as a series titled The Smart Student's Guides to Philosophical Classics. He also kept a promise to his colleagues who teach courses in the philosophy of law to write a textbook based exclusively on family law cases. That book was published in 2016 under the title Philosophy, Law and Family: A New Introduction to the Philosophy of Law. The book is published by Springer Nature International.