Rebecca Roache

Rebecca Roache is a British philosopher and Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London, known for her work on the philosophy of language, practical ethics and philosophy of mind. She is particularly noted for her work on swearing, which has featured in various media, such as the BBC.

Roache received her BA in philosophy at the University of Leeds in 1996, and her MA in philosophy at the same university in 1997. She then took an MPhil (1999) and a DPhil (2002) at the University of Cambridge, St. John's College. After completing her DPhil, she worked in various projects at the University of Oxford from 2006 onwards. She is currently Senior Lecturer at Royal Holloway, University of London. From 2013 to 2018, she was Associate Editor for the Journal of Medical Ethics.

Roache is also noted for a blogpost where she said she unfriended people who voted for the Conservatives at the 2015 General Election. She argued that “Openly supporting a political party “that – in the name of austerity – withdraws support from the poor, the sick, the foreign, and the unemployed while rewarding those in society who are least in need of reward” was “as objectionable as expressing racist, sexist, or homophobic views.”

In addition to her work in the philosophy of language, Roache has published on a variety of topics in practical ethics and metaphysics, such as which biomedical modifications to humans could be used to fight climate change.

In 2021, an article from 2014 about her research on enhanced punishment resurfaced because of its similarities to a Black Mirror episode. She suggested uploading minds to computers and distorting the perception of time with psychoactive **** as two ways to make punishment more unpleasant for prisoners.