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<title>Frank Chapman Sharp</title>
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<span id="openzim-page-title" class="mw-page-title-main"><span class="mw-page-title-main">Frank Chapman Sharp</span></span>
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<div id="mw-content-text" class="mw-body-content mw-content-ltr" lang="en" dir="ltr"><div class="mw-content-ltr mw-parser-output" lang="en" dir="ltr"><p><b>Frank Chapman Sharp</b> (July 30, 1866 – May 4, 1943) was an <a href="American_philosophy" title="American philosophy">American philosopher</a> who specialized in <a href="Ethics" title="Ethics">ethics</a>, including <a href="Business_ethics" title="Business ethics">business ethics</a> and the ethical conduct of war.
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Career">Career</h2></div>
<p>He received his BA from <a href="Amherst_College" title="Amherst College">Amherst College</a> in 1887 and his Ph.D. at the Konigliche-Friedrich-Wilhelms <a href="University_of_Berlin" class="mw-redirect" title="University of Berlin">University of Berlin</a> in 1892. His thesis, <i>The Aesthetic Element in Morality and Its Place in a Utilitarian Theory of Morals</i>, was published in book form in both English and German in 1893. His entire teaching career was spent on the philosophy faculty at the <a href="University_of_Wisconsin" class="mw-redirect" title="University of Wisconsin">University of Wisconsin</a>, where he was promoted to full professor in 1905. He served as President of the Western Division of the <a href="American_Philosophical_Society" title="American Philosophical Society">American Philosophical Society</a> during the 1907-1908 term. Among Sharp's other publications are <i>Shakespeare's Portrayal of the Moral Life</i> (1902); <i>A Study of the Influence of Custom on Moral Judgment</i> (1908); <i>A Course in Moral Instruction for the High School</i> (1909); <i>Syllabus on Moral Instruction</i> (with Frederic James Gould, 1911); <i>Ethics</i> (1928); <i>Business Ethics: Studies in Fair Competition</i> (1937); <i>Problems in Business Ethics</i> (1937); and <i>Good Will and Ill Will: A Study in Moral Judgments</i> (1950), the last of which was published posthumously.
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Philosophy">Philosophy</h2></div>
<p>Sharp was among the first philosophers to focus on <a href="Business_ethics" title="Business ethics">business ethics</a>, in which he discussed the fair treatment of employees, consumers, and competitors.<sup id="cite_ref-1" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-1"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>1<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> His <i>Syllabus on Moral Instruction</i> was, for a time, used by the United States military for troop instruction. Sharp was also among the first philosophers to perform empirical studies of moral intuitions, conducting surveys at the University of Wisconsin, both of highly educated liberal arts students and of agricultural students who had had limited formal education. Sharp believed that these studies confirmed his <a href="Utilitarian" class="mw-redirect" title="Utilitarian">utilitarian</a> ethical positions. He is credited with being the first moral philosopher to use a variant of the now famous <a href="Trolley_problem" title="Trolley problem">trolley problem</a> in which a switchman must choose between saving many strangers or his own daughter from a runaway train.<sup id="cite_ref-Sharp1898_2-0" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-Sharp1898-2"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>2<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup> A brief summary of Sharp's philosophy may be found in <a href="Richard_Brandt" title="Richard Brandt">Richard Brandt's</a> review of Sharp's <i>Good Will and Ill Will.</i><sup id="cite_ref-3" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-3"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>3<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="Frank_Chapman_Sharp_Memorial_Prize">Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize</h2></div>
<p>The Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize was established by the American Philosophical Society in 1990 to honor Sharp's memory. It is awarded every other year to the best unpublished essay or monograph on the philosophy of war and peace.<sup id="cite_ref-4" class="reference"><a href="#cite_note-4"><span class="cite-bracket">[</span>4<span class="cite-bracket">]</span></a></sup>
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<div class="mw-heading mw-heading2"><h2 id="References">References</h2></div>
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</style><cite id="CITEREFSharpFox1937" class="citation book cs1">Sharp, Frank Chapman; Fox, Philip G (1937). <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.178900/page/n3/mode/2up"><i>Business Ethics: Studies in Fair Competition</i></a>.</cite></span>
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<li id="cite_note-Sharp1898-2"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-Sharp1898_2-0">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite id="CITEREFSharp1898" class="citation journal cs1">Sharp, Frank Chapman (January 1898). "An Objective Study of Some Moral Judgments". <i>The American Journal of Psychology</i>. <b>9</b> (2): <span class="nowrap">198–</span>234. <a href="Doi_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="Doi (identifier)">doi</a>:<a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://doi.org/10.2307%2F1411759">10.2307/1411759</a>. <a href="JSTOR_(identifier)" class="mw-redirect" title="JSTOR (identifier)">JSTOR</a> <a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/1411759">1411759</a>.</cite></span>
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<li id="cite_note-3"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-3">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><i>The Philosophical Review</i>, Vol. 60, No. 3 (Jul., 1951), pp. 400-402</span>
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<li id="cite_note-4"><span class="mw-cite-backlink"><b><a href="#cite_ref-4">^</a></b></span> <span class="reference-text"><cite class="citation web cs1"><a rel="nofollow" class="external text" href="http://www.apaonline.org/general/custom.asp?page=sharp">"Frank Chapman Sharp Memorial Prize - the American Philosophical Association"</a>.</cite></span>
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