Dr. Beauchamp serves as Professor of Philosophy and Senior Research Scholar, Kennedy Institute of Ethics. He was born in Austin, Texas. He took graduate degrees from Yale University and The Johns Hopkins University, where he received his Ph.D. in 1970. He then joined the faculty of the Philosophy Department at Georgetown University, and in the mid-70s accepted a joint appointment at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. In late 1975, he joined the staff of the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, where he wrote the bulk of The Belmont Report (1978).

Beauchamp's research interests are in the ethics of human-subjects research, the place of universal principles and rights in biomedical ethics, methods of bioethics, Hume and the history of modern philosophy, and business ethics. Beauchamp is currently editing a 1,000-page book of original articles—The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Animals—that will be a comprehensive, state-of-the-art presentation of the field not possible until very recently.

Publications include the following co-authored works: Principles of Biomedical Ethics (6th edn. 2009), A History and Theory of Informed Consent (Oxford, 1986), The Human Use of Animals (Oxford, 2nd edn. 2008), and Philosophical Ethics (McGraw-Hill, third edn., 2001). Publications also include a number of edited and coedited anthologies and over 140 scholarly articles in journals and books. Many of his articles were republished early in 2010 by the Oxford University Press under the title Standing on Principles: Collected Works.

Beauchamp is one of three editors of the Clarendon Hume, a critical edition of the works of David Hume under continuous publication by Clarendon Press, Oxford. Beauchamp has himself issued three volumes in the Clarendon Hume. All deal with Hume's theories of human nature, the limits of knowledge, moral philosophy, moral psychology, and philosophy of religion, based on Hume's works An Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals, An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding, A Dissertation on the Passions, and The Natural History of Religion. Beauchamp’s co-authored book Hume and the Problem of Causation (Oxford University Press, 1981) has been widely discussed in the Hume literature.

In 2004 Beauchamp was given the Lifetime Achievement Award of the American Society of Bioethics and Humanities (ASBH) in recognition of outstanding contributions and significant publications in bioethics and the humanities. In 2003, he was presented Georgetown University’s Career Recognition Award, which is awarded to a faculty member in the university each year for distinguished research across an entire career. Earlier, in 1994, Indiana University awarded Beauchamp its “Memorial Award for Furthering Greater Understanding and Exchange of Opinions between the Professions of Law and Medicine.”