Stephen White, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Northwestern University, tragically died on Sunday, March 21st, at the age of 38, from complications of heart surgery. Stephen was a talented philosopher, a beloved teacher and mentor, and a valued colleague. He was also a devoted husband to his wife, Jessica, and a loving father to their two-year old daughter, Lucy. Stephen was gentle and kind. He loved music, both as a player and as a listener, and had a wonderful sense of humor. He was a dear friend, and he will be deeply missed by those of us who were lucky to know him.

Professionally, Stephen was a brilliant young ethicist who received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 2012. He joined the philosophy department at Northwestern that Fall, and he was promoted to Associate Professor in 2019. Stephen’s tragically short career was rich with accomplishments and honors. As a graduate student, he was awarded the prestigious Charlotte W. Newcombe fellowship for his dissertation, “Friendship, Beneficence, and the Self.” At Northwestern, his teaching was recognized by the Associated Student Government of Northwestern in their honor roll for 2018–2019. One of his articles, “On the Moral Objection to Coercion,” was selected by the Philosopher’s Annual as one of the ten best philosophy papers of 2017, and in 2019 he was awarded the prestigious Laurence S. Rockefeller Fellowship, for a one-year sabbatical at Princeton University’s Center for Human Values. Most fundamentally, he was a penetrating and generous philosopher who wanted to devote all of his skill and effort to important, and yet very specific questions about how best to live one’s life. 

Many of you will be reeling from the shock and sadness of this news and will be looking for ways to express your condolences. With his family’s permission, we have set up this GoFundMe to institute a memorial fund that will support a scholarship/prize of his family’s choice in Stephen’s name.