Janet Radcliffe-Richards
Role or Position
Janet Radcliffe-Richards is Professor of Practical Philosophy and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre, University of Oxford, and Reader in Bioethics at University College London.
Email address
janet.radclifferichards@philosophy.ox.ac.uk
Academic Background
Janet is a philosopher by training, with degrees from the universities of Keele, Calgary (Canada) and Oxford, and was until 1999 a member of the Department of Philosophy at the Open University. She was until 2007, Director of Bioethics in the Medical School at University College London.Research Interests
Janet 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 was drawn into biomedical ethics by doctors in 1989 when the organ selling scandal first surfaced in the UK. Her collaborative work with clinicians gradually developed, and she eventually moved to her present academic position specialising in medical ethics. She has served on many working and advisory groups including the ethics committees of three of the Medical Royal Colleges, and the International Forum for Transplant Ethics. She is a frequent broadcaster on moral, social and scientific issues.She is currently preparing her UCL work on medical ethics for publication, but hopes 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.
Further Researcher in: Neuroscience of Morality and Decision-Making..