This site contains information about my academic career and research interests.

My CV is available here.   PubMed entries here.

If you are looking for my blog “In Search of Enlightenment” please click here.

Detailed research statement *here*

I am a political theorist and philosopher and received my PhD from the University of Bristol in England in 1999.  I have published 4 books (two edited volumes and two single-authored books) and numerous articles in a variety of different journals.  My research interests are interdisciplinary and include normative issues in politics, philosophy, law, science and medicine.  My publications have appeared in journals such as Political Studies, American Journal of Bioethics, Canadian Journal of Political Science, British Medical Journal, Nature’s EMBO Reports, University of Toronto Law Journal, Bioethics, Public Health Ethics, and Philosophy of the Social Sciences.

Before coming to Queen’s University in 2008 I was Associate Professor of Political Science (Cross-Appointed with Philosophy) at Waterloo University.  I also spent a year as a Research Fellow in the Dept of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University and as a Visitor in Oxford’s Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences.

In the more distant past, I held full-time academic appointments in the Dept of Government at Manchester University, the Dept of Political Science and International Studies at Birmingham University and the Dept of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

My research has focused on a variety of different topics, including:  genetics and justice; Marx’s theory of historical materialism; the moral imperative to retard human aging; a critique of ideal theory; the “dialogical model” of judicial review; virtue jurisprudence; the application of virtue ethics to different practical dilemmas; Darwinian medicine and positive psychology.

Below you will find further details about my research and interests.

In 2011-12 I will be teaching POLS 250 An Introduction to Political Theory.  Students interested in that course can view the trailer here.

Books

(1)  An Introduction to Contemporary Political Theory (London: Sage Publications, 2004).

(2)  Contemporary Political Theory: A Reader (London: Sage Publications, 2004).

(3)  Justice, Democracy and Reasonable Agreement (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007)

(4)  Virtue Jurisprudence (co-edited with Lawrence Solum) (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008 )

Publications(by discipline)

POLITICAL SCIENCE

●“Virtue Epistemology and the “Epistemic Fitness” of Democracy” (forthcoming) Political Studies Review

●“Justice in Ideal Theory: A Refutation”  Political Studies Volume 55, 2007, pp. 844–864.

● “Dualism, Incentives and the Demands of Rawlsian Justice” Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 38(3), Sept. 2005, pp. 675-95.

● “Making Deliberative Democracy a More Practical Political Ideal” European Journal of Political Theory, Vol. 4(2), 2005, pp. 200-208.

● “Taxation and Distributive Justice” Political Studies Review, Vol. 2, 2004, pp. 185-197.

● “Incentives and the Natural Duties of Justice”, Politics, Vol. 20(1), 2000, pp. 19-24.

● “Does Rawls Support the Procedural Republic?” Politics, Vol. 19, No. 1, February 1999, pp. 29-35.

● “Neutrality, Toleration and Reasonable Agreement” in D. Castiglioni and C. Mackinnon, eds., Toleration, Neutrality and Democracy (Amsterdam: Kluwer, 2003).

● “Deliberative Democracy and Nanotechnology” Nanoethics: Examining the Societal Impact of Nanotechnology (NJ:  John Wiley and Sons Inc.) edited by Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor and John Weckert.

MEDICINE

● “Towards a More Inclusive Vision of the Medical Sciences” QJM: An International Journal of Medicine  102 (2009): 579-582.

● “Has the Time Come to Take on Time Itself?” British Medical Journal, Vol. 337, 2008, pp. 147-48.

● “Preparing for Our Enhanced Future” Journal of Medical Licensure and Discipline Vol 93(2), 2007, pp. 12-18.

SCIENCE

● “Biogerontology and the Intellectual Virtues” (forthcoming) Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences 

● “”Positive Biology” as a New Paradigm for the Medical Sciences” (forthcoming) Nature’s EMBO Reports

●  “Global Aging, Well-Ordered Science and Prospection” Rejuvenation Research 13(5) (2010):607-12.

● “Framing the Inborn Aging Process and Longevity Science” Biogerontology 11(3) (2010): 377-85.

●  “Why Aging Research?”Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1197 (2010): 1–8.

●  “A Tale of Two Strategies:  The Moral Imperative to Tackle Ageing” Nature’s EMBO Reports, Vol. 9(7), 2008, pp. 592-95. [PDF available for free via PubMed]

● “Sufficiency, Justice and the Pursuit of Health- Extension” Rejuvenation Research Vol. 10(4), 2007, pp. 513-20.

● “Genes and Distributive Justice” Nature Encyclopedia of the Human Genome 2003.

BIOETHICS

● “Normative Theorising about Genetics” (forthcoming) Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

● “Equality and the Duty to Retard Human Aging” Bioethics 24(8) (2010): 384-94. 

“Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Reproductive Freedom, and Deliberative Democracy” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 34(2) (2009):135-154.

● “Aging Research, Priorities and Aggregation” Public Health Ethics , Vol. 1(3), 2008, pp. 258-67.

● “3 Wishes” Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 20(1), 2008, pp. 23-28.

●  “The Case for Re-thinking Incest Laws” Journal of Medical Ethics Vol. 34:e2, 2008, pp. 1-2.

●“Genetic Justice Must Track Genetic Complexity” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Vol. 17(1), 2008, pp. 45-53.

● “Virtue Ethics and Prenatal Genetic Enhancement” Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology Vol. 1(1), 2007, pp. 1-13.

● “Justice in the Genetically Transformed Society” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Vol. 15(1), 2005, pp. 91-99.

● “Genes and Equality” Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 30(4), 2004, pp. 587-592.

● “The Genetic Difference Principle” American Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 4(2), 2004, W21-28.

PHILOSOPHY

● “Patriarchy and Historical Materialism” (forthcoming) Hypatia

●“Mind the Gap: Beneficence and Senescence” (forthcoming) Public Affairs Quarterly

● “Gene Patents and Justice” Journal of Value Inquiry Vol. 41 (2-4), 2007, pp. 147-163.

● “Historical Materialism and Supervenience” Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 35(4), 2005, pp. 420-446.

● “A Challenge to Brink’s Metaphysical Egoism” Res Publica: A Journal of Legal and Social Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2003, pp. 243-256.

● “Genetic Intervention and the New Frontiers of Justice” Canadian Philosophical Review XLI, 2002, pp. 139-154.

● “Justice and a Citizens’ Basic Income”, Journal of Applied Philosophy 16(3), 1999, pp. 283-296.

LAW

●  “The Institutional Theory of Legal Interpretation” University of Toronto Law Journal, Vol. 58(2), 2008, pp. 217-32.

● “Civic Liberalism and the ‘Dialogical Model’ of Judicial Review” Law and Philosophy Vol. 25(5), 2006, pp. 489-532.  Reprinted in edited volume Virtue Jurisprudence.

● “The Social Character of Freedom of Expression” Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 14(2), 2001, pp. 261-71.

● “Public Reason, Neutrality and Civic Virtue” Ratio Juris: An International Journal of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, 12(1), 1999, pp. 11-25.

“No biological problem is fully solved until both the proximate and evolutionary causation has been elucidated”

Ernst Mayr The Growth of Biological Thought (1982)

 

“Science marks the emancipation of mind from devotion to customary practices and makes possible the systematic pursuit of new ends.  It is the agency of progress in action…. Science has familiarized men with the idea of development, taking effect practically in persistent gradual amelioration of the estate of our common humanity”.

John Dewey Democracy and Education (1916)

 

“No gentlemen, the difficult thing is not to escape death, I think, but to escape wickedness- that is much more difficult, for that runs faster than death.  And now I, being slow and old, have been caught by the slower one; but my accusers, being clever and quick, have been caught by the swifter, badness.  And now I and they depart, I, condemned by you to death, but these, condemned by truth to depravity and injustice.  I abide by my penalty, they by theirs.  Perhaps this was to be so, and I think it is fair enough.”

Socrates  (399 B.C.) addressing the Athenian jury which condemned him to death for questioning their beliefs (as told by Plato in The Apology)

 

“I go on this great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom.  Is there no virtue among us?  If there be not, we are in a wretched situation.  No theoretical checks, no form of government , can render us secure.  To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people is a chimerical idea”.   James Madison, Virginia Ratifying Convention, 1788.

“Let no one when young delay to study philosophy, nor when he is old grow weary of his study…And the man who says that the age of philosophy has either not yet come or has gone by is like the man who says that the age for happiness has not yet come to him, or has passed away… We must then mediate on the things that make our happiness, seeing that when that is with us we have all, but when it is absent we do all to win it”. Epicurus, 300 BC

“…the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile”.                     Robert F. Kennedy, 1968

I wish I had the voice of Homer
To sing of rectal carcinoma
Which kills a lot more chaps in fact,
Than were bumped off when Troy was sacked.

J.B.S. Haldane (1892-1964) Geneticist and evolutionary biologist who died of cancer.

My Perfectionist Account of Ethics

Are You Guilty of Gerontologiphobia? (Part 1 and Part 2)

Bad Government 101: Lessons to be Learned from the Bush Administration

Being Inspired by Hobbes

Causes of Death

Genetics and Justice (Where to Begin?)

Inequalities That Really Matter (but we seldom think about)

The Playful Life

Longevity Genes (and Being Inspired by George Burns)

Petroleum, Patriarchy and Marx

Political “Philosophy”

Responsible Risk Management

Risk of Harm in Sport

Sen Talk at Oxford

The “Are You a Fully-Fledged Rawlsian?” Test

The Brilliance of Bentham

Thinking Outside the Box

What Justice Requires, “Many-things-Considered”

Places I have lived:

Hamilton, Ontario

Bristol, England

Aberdeen, Scotland

Birmingham, England

Manchester, England

(I worked in Manchester but actually lived in a small town nearby called “Cheadle”).

Waterloo, Ontario

Oxford, England

Kingston, Ontario