Gregory S. Kavka, Philosophy: Irvine

1947-1994 Professor Gregory Kavka died on February 16, 1994, at the age of 46. After cancer was first detected in January of 1984, Greg underwent intensive radiation and three major operations over the next three years. The cancer recurred after a remission of seven years.

Despite the debilitating and disfiguring nature of his operations and treatments, Greg fought his way back to a full and productive schedule of writing and teaching and to a new and rich period of his personal life. He published one book and thirteen articles between 1987 and the end of his life. He was also well along on another book, provisionally entitled, Governing Angels. In his own view, however, perhaps the most important achievement of this period was the birth of his beloved daughter, Amber, in 1989.

Greg grew up in Chicago. After earning a B.A. in philosophy from Princeton University, Greg entered the Ph.D. program at the University of Michigan, where he met his wife, Virginia Warren. After completing a dissertation under the supervision of Richard Brandt, he took a job at UCLA in 1973. He joined the philosophy department at Irvine as an associate professor in 1979.

Greg produced an influential body of work that established him as one of the leading political philosophers of his generation. He wrote more than fifty philosophical articles and reviews, some of which were widely reprinted. He published two important books, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory and Moral Paradoxes of Nuclear Deterrence. His work on Hobbes and on rationality is internationally admired. The brilliant work on nuclear deterrence instituted a new field of practical philosophy. He was also a recipient of prestigious awards from the National Endowment for the Humanities (may it survive the Republican Contract with America!) and the Ford Foundation.

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