Business ethics and other thoughts

I am a philosopher, although I used to be a management consultant.

I work primarily on business ethics and other areas of applied ethics. This site is mainly a means to publishing some thoughts on these topics. Other, slightly idiosyncratic content may also appear, from time to time.

Outside work I am a football fan, supporting Brighton and Hove Albion, a runner, and an amateur wine enthusiast.

Contact me

Any thoughts or comments on anything that appears on this website are always welcome. Please email me at j.dempsey.1@warwick.ac.uk, or tweet me @dempsey_james.

About me

Since the 1st of July 2012 I have been Research Fellow on the AHRC funded project on ‘Responsibilities, Ethics and the Financial Crisis’ (FinCris). Originally based at the University of Birmingham, we moved to the University of Warwick in January 2013. The project is due to last three years.

From September 2010 to July 2012 I worked at the interdisciplinary applied ethics centre at Leeds University as a teaching fellow and knowledge transfer officer, teaching applied ethics in the University, and offering ethical consulting services to external organisations.

I returned to academia in 2007, on the St Andrews and Stirling MLitt in Philosophy, and from 2008 to 2013 I wrote my PhD in the same joint programme, with a focus on the moral analysis of business organisations and their activity. The title of my thesis is: ‘Business Ethics and Collective Responsibility’.

Prior to returning to academia I worked for eight years, the majority of which was as a consultant at Accenture where I ran projects for a variety of clients, focused mainly on information strategy. I also spent a year, before joining Accenture, setting up a UK business for a successful Norwegian mobile telecoms start up.

I completed my undergraduate degree in Philosophy and Economics at Oxford University in 1999.