Educated by the Jesuits in Scotland, at art schools in Kent and London, and at the University of London, John Haldane is Emeritus Professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of St Andrews, Scotland; Affiliated Distinguished Professor of Philosophy at Baylor University, United States; Professor of Virtue Theory at the University of Birmingham, England; and Professor of Philosophy of Education at the Australian Catholic University (Melbourne).

He has also held positions at the Gregorian University in Italy, and Georgetown, Pittsburgh and Notre Dame universities in the United States. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh; past chair of the Royal Institute of Philosophy, London; and former consultor to the Pontifical Council for Culture at the Vatican where he is also a member of two pontifical academies.

He has written for a number of newspapers and appeared on radio and TV in the United Kingdom, the United States and Australia, including on The Drum and Q+A.