When I was young I wanted to be Alan Wertheimer. When I first read him as an undergrad in courses in ethics and in law and philosophy he was one of the twentieth century writers in the field I most admired (along with Bernard Williams, Joel Feinberg, and a few other august names). His clarity, his insight, and his thinking on topics like exploitation and coercion served to me as a model for what I wanted to do with my life.
Thus it was a true honor to, like Emily, get to know him personally over the last few years. To all the superlatives about him that jump out from the page I can add that in real life he was a real mentsch, an amazing reader and mentor, who I will miss very much.
What is perhaps most impressive about Alan is that he was not only a consummate philosopher’s philosopher, but also a lawyer’s philosopher. A quick search I did for his work in the secondary sources database in Westlaw show 442 separate law papers citing to his work. He has had a significant impact on not only bioethics, but contracts, law and sexuality, constitutional law, and the legal profession. Indeed, as a parting salute to this great thinker let me highlight one of his papers that never achieved the recognition I think it deserved (it inspired some of my own writing): The Equalization of Legal Resources from 1988 in Philosophy and Public Affairs.
Goodbye Alan, you will be missed, but very much remembered.