Professor Julian Savulescu, Uehiro Chair in Practical Ethics and Director
Julian Savulescu's areas of research include: the ethics of genetics, especially predictive genetic testing, pre implantation genetic diagnosis, prenatal testing, behavioural genetics, genetic enhancement, gene therapy. Research ethics, especially ethics of embryo research, including embryonic stem cell research. New forms of reproduction, including cloning and assisted reproduction . Medical ethics, including end of life decision-making, resource allocation, consent, confidentiality, decision-making involving incompetent people, and other areas. Sports ethics. The analytic philosophical basis of practical ethics. Recent Publications | CV | Contact

Dr. Guy Kahane, Deputy Director and Research Fellow
Guy Kahane’s areas of research include value theory, meta-ethics, practical ethics, the history of ethics, and the philosophy and ethics of neuroscience. He is especially interested in questions about the nature and value of pain and suffering.He is currently heading a two-year project on neuroethics, funded by the John Fell OUP Research Fund and is a Fulford Junior Research Fellow at Somerville College.
Recent Publications | CV | Website | Audio Interview

Simon Rippon, Oxford-Harvard Postdoctoral Fellow
Simon Rippon holds a joint Fellowship between the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Harvard University Program in Ethics and Health. His areas of research interest include metaethics, moral epistemology, bioethics, and political philosophy. Currently he is researching topics including the the nature of moral expertise and its significance for health policy, the therapy/enhancement distinction, conscientious objection, and idealized moral disagreement. CV |Contact

Dr. Barbro Fröding, Marie Curie Postdoctoral Fellow
Dr Fröding is Hardie Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Lincoln College, and Marie Cure Postdoctoral fellow at the Centre. Her research addresses human enhancement from a virtue ethics perspective, and the philosophical dimensions of ownership of biological material. She is especially interested in Aristotelian virtue ethics. CV- Barbro Fröding

Dr. Russell Powell, Research Fellow, Science and Religious Conflict (AHRC funded research project)
Russell Powell is the Arts and Humanities Research Council Fellow on the Science and Religious Conflict Project at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and a Research Associate for both the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics and the Program on Ethics and the New Biosciences. Prior to his appointment at Oxford, Russell was a Greenwall Postdoctoral Fellow at Johns Hopkins University, and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Philosophy and a Senior Research Scholar in the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University. He received his B.A. in philosophy (summa cum laude) from Binghamton University (1999), Juris Doctor (cum laude) from NYU Law School (2002), and Ph.D. in Philosophy from Duke University (2008). Russell’s academic interests are wide-ranging and highly interdisciplinary: he has published in areas ranging from political and legal philosophy to the philosophy of science and bioethics, in journals such as the Journal of Philosophy, Journal of Political Philosophy, Biology and Philosophy, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, and the Australian Journal of Legal Philosophy. CV- Russell Powell

Dr. Steve Clarke, Research Fellow, Science and Religious Conflict (AHRC funded research project)
Steve Clarke is named Research Fellow on the AHRC funded project ‘Science and Religious Conflict’. He is on leave from the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics in Australia (until 2012) where he is a Senior Research Fellow. He holds a PhD in Philosophy from Monash University and has previously held appointments at the University of Melbourne, the University of Cape Town and La Trobe University. Steve is a broad-ranging philosopher who has published in such journals as The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science, Synthese, Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, Philosophical Psychology and the Journal of Risk Research. Audio Interview

Professor Jeff McMahan, Distinguished Research Fellow
Jeff McMahan is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University. He studied at Oxford and Cambridge and works in normative and applied ethics, political philosophy, and legal theory. His books include The Ethics of Killing: Problems at the Margins of Life (Oxford, 2002) and Killing in War (Oxford, 2009). The second of these is based on the Uehiro lectures he gave in Oxford in 2006.

Professor Jonathan Glover , Distinguished Research Fellow
Professor of ethics at King's College, University of London, Jonathan Glover also serves as the director of the Center for Medical Law and Ethics. In that role, he guides the center's teaching, research, and discussion of law and ethics in relation to medicine and health care. He currently is working on ethical issues in psychiatry and questions raised by the Human Genome Project. Dr. Glover is the author of several books on ethics, including Causing Death and Saving Lives and an investigation of evil, entitled Humanity: A Moral History of the Twentieth Century. He chaired a European Commission Working Party on Assisted Reproduction, which produced Ethics of New Reproductive Technologies: the Glover Report to the European Commission. For many years, he was a Fellow of New College at Oxford University.

Professor Janet Radcliffe-Richards , Distinguished Research Fellow
Janet Radcliffe-Richards is Professor of Practical Philosophy and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre. She was until 2007 Director of Bioethics in the medical school at University College London, and previously a member of the Philosophy Department of the Open University. She originally worked on metaphysics and philosophy of science, but for many years now has concentrated on the practical applications of philosophy, with books on topics such as feminism (The Sceptical Feminist, 1980), discrimination and inequality (Philosophical Problems of Equality, 1996) and the implications of Darwinian theory (Human Nature after Darwin, 2000). She is currently preparing her UCL work on medical ethics for publication, but hope afterwards return to her work on discrimination and equality, on the complex connections between science and ethics, and on techniques of practical reasoning in general. Her regular Oxford days are Tuesday - Thursday. Contact

Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Distinguished Research Fellow
Walter Sinnott-Armstrong is Chauncey Stillman Professor in Practical Ethics in the Department of Philosophy and the Kenan Institute for Ethics at Duke University. Prior to that he was Professor of Philosophy and Hardy Professor of Legal Studies at Dartmouth College, where he had taught since 1981 after receiving a B.A. from Amherst College and a Ph.D. from Yale University. He is Vice-Chair of the Board of Officers of the American Philosophical Association and Co-director of the MacArthur Law and Neuroscience Program. He has published extensively on ethics (theoretical and applied), philosophy of law, epistemology, philosophy of religion, and informal logic. His current research focuses on empirical moral psychology as well as law and neuroscience. Website

Professor Barbara Sahakian, Distinguished Research Fellow
Barbara J Sahakian is Professor of Clinical Neuropsychology at the Department of Psychiatry, University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine and Honorary Consultant Clinic Psychologist at Addenbrooke's Hospital. She has an international reputation in the fields of cognitive psychopharmacology, neuroethics, neuropsychology, neuropsychiatry and neuroimaging. She is particularly interested in the training of 21st century neuroscientists in neuroethics and in the engagement of the public in science. She is co-inventor of the CANTAB computerised neuropsychological tests, which are in use world-wide. She is probably best known for her research work on cognition and depression, cognitive enhancement using pharmacological treatments, neuroethics and early detection of Alzheimer's disease. Her current programme of research, funded by the Wellcome Trust and Medical Research Council, investigates the neurochemical modulation of impulsive and compulsive behaviour in neuropsychiatric disorders, such as unipolar and bipolar depression and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Professor Sahakian is a Fellow of Clare Hall and Bye-Fellow of Christ's College. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and has also been awarded the Distinguished Scholars Award for 2009 from the University of Pennsylvania.

Professor Bill Fulford, Distinguished Research Fellow
Bill (KWM) Fulford is Professor of Philosophy and Mental Health in the University of Warwick Medical School; Fellow of St Cross College; Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist and member of the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford; Professor of Philosophy and Psychiatry and Co-Director of the Institute for Philosophy, Diversity and Mental Health at UCLan.  He is Lead Editor for the Oxford book series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry, and Founder and Co-editor with John Sadler of the international journal Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology (PPP).  He is also Special Adviser for Values-Based Practice in the Department of Health, London.

Professor Luciano Floridi, Distinguished Research Fellow
Luciano Floridi currently holds the Research Chair in Philosophy of Information and the UNESCO Chair in Information and Computer Ethics, both at the School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire. He is best known for his pioneering work on two new areas of philosophical research, which he has contributed to establish: the Philosophy of Information and Information Ethics.

Dr Nick Shackel, Distinguished Research Fellow
Nicholas Shackel's research includes work on rationality, epistemic ethics, metaethics and the neuroscience of normative judgement. He received his PhD in philosophy from the University of Nottingham, has taught at a number of UK universities and was a Research Fellow in the Future of Humanity Institute before taking up a lectureship at Cardiff University.

Professor Ingmar Persson, Distinguished Research Fellow
Ingmar Persson, Professor of Practical Philosophy, Göteborg University, Sweden. His fields of
research are ethics and the philosophy of mind and action. His principal publication is The Retreat of Reason: A Dilemma in the Philosophy of Life (OUP 2005).

Professor Allen Buchanan, Distinguished Research Associate
Allen Buchanan is the James B. Duke Professor of philosophy at Duke University. He received his PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1975. He has written six books covering such topics as Marx, applied ethics (especially bio-medical ethics), social justice, and international justice, including the foundations of international law. Buchanan served as staff philosopher for the President's Commission on Medical Ethics in 1983. From 1996 to 2000 he served on the Advisory Council for the National Human Genome Research Institute. Webpage

Dr. Lachlan de Crespigny, Research Associate
Associate Professor Lachlan de Crespigny is an Obstetrician and Gynaecologist who practices exclusively in prenatal testing and gynaecologic ultrasound. He is a Principal Fellow in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Melbourne and is an Honorary Fellow of the Murdoch Children's Research Institute. He is in private ultrasound practice. He has long had an interest in research in his specialty and has published widely in Australian and International journals. His recent topics include ethics and abortion. He is coauthor of Prenatal Tests: The Facts (OUP 2005)

Professor Bart Gremmen, Research Associate
Bart (HGJ) Gremmen’s research areas include normative and applied ethics, philosophy of technology, philosophy of science, and technology assessment. His current research focuses on the ethical and societal issues in emerging technologies, genomics, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, synthetic biology. He published on a wide range of topics: sustainability, waste disposal, discursive psychology, the precautionary principle, de-domestication of animals, Novel Foods, theory of practice, rules, pragmatism, celiac disease, allergy, consumer preferences, fruit and health. Dr. Gremmen is Professor of Ethical and Social Aspects of Genomics at the Laboratory of Plant Breeding and director of the Centre for Methodical Ethics and Technology Assessment at Wageningen University. He manages the society clusters in the Centre for BioSystems Genomics and the Celiac Disease Consortium. He received his MA in philosophy and ethics (cum laude) from the Radboud University (1980), and PhD in philosophy from the University of Twente (1993).

Dr. Anders Sandberg, Research Associate
Anders Sandberg’s research centres on societal and ethical issues surrounding human enhancement and new technology, as well as estimating the capabilities and underlying science of future technologies. Topics of particular interest include enhancement of cognition, cognitive biases, technology-enabled collective intelligence, neuroethics and public policy. He has worked on this within the EU project ENHANCE, where he also was responsible for public outreach and online presence. Recent Publications | Webpage | CV | Audio Interview

Professor Nick Bostrom, Research Associate
Nick Bostrom 's research areas include ethics, philosophy of science, and the foundations of probability theory. Much of his current work focuses on ethical and policy issues in technology and science, especially: emerging technologies, risk analysis, artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, genetic engineering, and human enhancement technologies. He is Director of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University. He previously taught at Yale University in the Department of Philosophy and in the Yale Institute for Social and Policy Studies.; He has more than 170 publications to his name, including three books: Anthropic Bias (Routledge, 2002), Global Catastrophic Risks (OUP, 2008), and Human Enhancement (OUP, 2009). Webpage | CV | Contact | Audio Interview

Dr. Gustaf Arrhenius, Research Associate
Gustaf Arrhenius is a Torgny Segerstedt Pro Futura Fellow at Stockholm University and SCASSS since January 2005. His research interests are primarily in moral and political philosophy, and he’s especially interested in issues in the intersection between moral and political philosophy and the medical and social sciences (e.g., economics, law, and political science). He has written extensively on our moral obligations to future generations, applying the methods of social choice and game theory. Currently he’s researching issues in population ethics, the structure of value, democratic theory, equal opportunity and affirmative action, and ethical problems in paediatric research. Webpage | Contact

Minou Friele, Research Associate
Minou Friele is research associate and lecturer at the chair of practical philosophy at the Heinrich-Heine-University Duesseldorf, where she currently completes her habilitation (postdoctoral lecture qualification, required for a full professorship at German universities) and writes on “The ethics of moral compromise”. She is especially interested in the ethical requirements of co-operations in spite of persistent moral disagreements, particularly if such co-operation requires negotiations or compromise in moral values and principles.
Her research interests include biomedical ethics in relation to philosophy of law and political philosophy, with a particular focus on questions related to globalisation processes and on philosophical implications of new scientific and technological developments for human self-understanding; public health ethics and business ethics. Contact | CV

Toby Ord, Research Associate
Toby Ord's research interests encompass both theoretical and practical ethics. He is currently focusing on Moral Uncertainty: the study of how we are to act when we are uncertain about the relevant moral issues. This has been a much neglected topic in ethics, but has received increasing attention in recent years. He is developing theoretical underpinnings for decision making under moral uncertainty as well as looking at the implications for practical controversies. In addition, he isworking on the ethics of global poverty and global catastrophic risk.
Website | CV | Audio Interview

Thomas Douglas, Research Associate
Thomas Douglas's research interests lie in normative and applied ethics (especially neuroethics) and political philosophy. He is currently focussing on the ethics of human enhancement and some related questions about moral motivation, compensation for natural misfortune, and policymaking under conditions of uncertainty. He is also working on organ procurement policy. He has recently been awarded a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship in Biomedical Ethics which he will take up in the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Faculty of Philosophy from October 2009. Tom will investigate philosophical issues raised by dual-use biomedical research (research that may be used in both benevolent and malevolent ways), focusing in particular on synthetic biology and the neuroscience of morality. He will consider, among other questions, (1) what likely uses of research in these areas would qualify as malevolent/benevolent, and (2) how (if at all) scientists and policymakers should weigh possible malevolent and benevolent uses of research against one another in deciding whether to engage in or promote dual-use biomedical research. College hosted webpage | Personal webpage | Audio Interview

Seth Lazar, Research Associate
Seth Lazar researches and teaches normative and applied ethics, and political philosophy. His doctoral research focuses on the nature of associative duties—i.e. duties grounded in our special relationships—and in particular their role in the ethics of war. He is also a professional travel and landscape photographer. Website | CV | Photography

David Rodin, Carnegie-Uehiro Senior Fellow
Kei Hiruta, Uehiro- Carnegie Fellow, and Wolfson College, Oxford. Website
John Broome, Whites Professor of Moral Philosophy, Corpus Christi, Oxford
Krister Bykvist, Jesus College, Oxford
Tony Hope, Director Ethox Centre, University of Oxford
Dr Jane Kaye, Ethox Centre, University of Oxford
Gerald Lang, University of Leeds
Ainsley Newson, University of Bristol
Oliver O'Donovan, Regius Professor of Moral and Pastoral Theology, University of Oxford
Derek Parfit, Visiting Professor of Philosophy; Senior Research Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford
Michael Parker, Reader in Medical Ethics, Ethox Centre, University of Oxford
Henry Shue, Senior Research Fellow in Philosophy, Merton College, University of Oxford
John Tasioulas, Corpus Christi College, Oxford

Students [back to top of page]

Frej Klem Thomsen, Recognised Student
Frej Klem Thomsen works mainly in political philosophy, normative and applied ethics. He has a background in Philosophy and Cultural Studies, and has previously done (some) work on citizenship, cosmopolitanism, human rights and normative democratic theory. He is currently working on the topic of discrimination, particularly discrimination within the criminal justice system, including such issues as police profiling, sentencing and equality before the law. He is visiting Oxford and the Uehiro Centre for Hilary and Trinity 2010, during which the main research questions on his agenda will be 1) whether the normative concept of discrimination ought to include a group criterion, i.e. a limitation of discrimination as applying only to specific types of groups, 2) the circumstances under which police profiling is and is not justified, and 3) what, exactly, makes discrimination morally wrong when it is morally wrong. CV

Dominic Wilkinson | Audio Interview
Kerah Gordon-Solmon
Shlomit Harrosh
Angeliki Kerasidou
Alexandre Erler
Pablo Stafforini

Nicole Krzys

Michael Peat
Imogen Goold
Dov Fox
Jason Lott
Ros McDougall (BPhil)
Rony Duncan
Guliana Fuscaldo
Bennett Foddy

Visitors [back to top of page]

Professor Allen Buchanan, Leverhulme Visiting Professor
Professor Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Leverhulme Visiting Professor
Dr. Taro Okuda, Nanzan University
Francesca Minerva, PhD Candidate, Bologna University
Sandrine Blanc, PhD Candidate, The Sorbonne
Enrique Bonete Perales, University of Salamanca