Brian held a weekly seminar for graduate students in his home and allowed us to present our work (as well as to meet the rich and famous who would also come to give papers). That seminar continued on at Russell Hardin’s home once Brian left for Pasadena. At both venues the reading group provided myself and many peers with a glimpse of how faculty ought to interact with their students – no quarter given for bad argument or other nuttiness, but encouragement to do better over time. And, of course, Brian was instrumental at recruiting Hardin and later Elster to Chicago.

In the early 80’s Brian and I were both at a conference at St. Andrews. We sat down together to hear a lecture by Antony Flew: one of his anti-Rawls, anti-egalitarian screeds. Brian saw that I was carrying a copy of a new book on international intervention edited by Hedley Bull and asked to see it. As Flew gave his lecture, Brian read the book – he seemed, indeed, to have read the entire book by the time Flew had finished – though all the while muttering critical remarks about Flew’s argument under his breath. At one point Flew announced that the principal cause of poverty in the third world was that people in those areas just couldn’t control their own fecundity – at which point, without lifting his eyes from the page, Brian said, not entirely sotto voce, “Pity the Flews were so fecund!” and went on placidly with his reading.

Although I never knew Brian well, he was immensely kind and generous to me when I was just starting out in philosophy. He commissioned my first published essay (a review essay) for Ethics, offered me a position at Cal Tech, and wrote a letter of reference for me even though he had never taught me. I owe him a lot. We all do.