Because I am interested in issues at the intersection of several areas of philosophy and medicine it is difficult to summarise my research interests succinctly. However I am particularly interested in where ideas from political philosophy can be bought to bear on problems within medical ethics. I believe that an excessive focus has been placed on clinical ethics in bioethics, and this has obscured important background issues such as organisational and structural issues. As such I think that work in political philosophy can usefully inform approaches to a variety of issues in medical ethics. Thus my research interests are broad, but common themes run throughout:

Ethics of Regulation

I'm interested in ethical issues to do with regulation of human activities, particularly where these have broader implications for ethical theory and/or political philosophy. I'm especially interested when these topics raise broader underlying conceptual issues such as should we view research ethics committees as normative truth seeking devices, or instead as liberal consensus seeking devices? A continuing theme of my work in this area is ethical decision making in situations of fundamental uncertainty.

Public Health Ethics

This interest grew out of my PhD thesis, which concentrated on distributive justice in health care. But also because I am broadly interested in issues in political philosophy, particularly where these intersect with issues in medical ethics. A particular interest here is in the role responsibility might or ought to play in health care decision making.

Ethics of New Technologies

Arising from my interest in regulation more generally I've written about the ethics of new technologies. Here I have concentrated on questions about the effective regulation of these technologies given globalisation and questions about distributive justice and the implications of new technologies.