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Philosophy & Publications

Research interests

  • Responsibility Theory: I am interested in a range of related questions to do with moral responsibility. For example, investigating the ideas expressed by our different uses of ‘responsibility’ and how they are connected; what we do when we hold people accountable for past events, and how we justify this; and how responsibility can be applied to collective contexts, particularly businesses.
  • Applied Ethics: The motivation for my theoretical work is to be able to tackle the current ethical challenges faced by individuals and society. At the moment, my applied work focuses on the financial crisis, through the FinCris project. I am interested in who or what can be held morally responsible for the crisis, and how such responsibility is linked to obligations that should be enforced in the wake of the crisis.
  • Business Ethics: I became interested in theories of responsibility through an interest in business ethics. In particular, I am concerned with investigating what makes a theory of business ethics a good one, and how it differs from standard approaches to moral and political philosophy (if at all).
  • Social Contract Theory: One of the theoretical constructs I have investigated as a basis for business ethics is social contract theory. I have critiqued existing social contract approaches, such as Donaldson and Dufee’s ISCT model, and a future project will be to develop an improved version of such accounts.

Publications in Refereed Journals

  1. ‘Corporations and Non-Agential Moral Responsibility’, Journal of Applied Philosophy, 30 (4): 334–350. doi: 10.1111/japp.12029 (2013)
  2. ‘Pluralistic business ethics: the significance and justification of moral free space in integrative social contracts theory’, Business Ethics: A European Review, 20: 253–266 (2011)

Other Publications

  1. And Antony Elliot, ‘Business Angels’ Financial World (May 2012)
  2. Review of ‘The Moral Landscape’ by Sam Harris, Engineering and Technology Magazine (May 2011)
  3. ‘The role of the technology sector in the big society’, Engineering and Technology Magazine (April 2011)

Presentations & Talks

  1. ‘Banking Culture and Moral Responsibility for the Financial Crisis’, presented to the Department of Political Economy, Kings College London, December 2013
  2. ‘The Morality of Organisational Culture’, presented at the Centre for Ethics, Law and Public Affairs (CELPA) seminar, Warwick, October 2013
  3. ‘Collective Responsibility: Barclays’ Business Practices’, presented at a workshop for the AHRC FinCris project, Warwick, June 2013
  4. ‘Greedy Bankers? Collective Responsibility for the Financial Crisis’, presented at a workshop for the AHRC FinCris project, Birmingham, November 2012
  5. *‘Theories of Business Ethics: Linking the Methodology Debate and the Status Debate’ (with Ben Wempe), presented at the Society for Business Ethics’ annual conference, San Antonio, August 2011
  6. ‘The Ethics of Safety in Context’ invited presentation at an event on ‘The Cost and Ethics of Safety’ organised by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, May 2011.
  7. *‘The Moral Significance of Business Practice’, presented at the Society for Business Ethics’ annual conference, Montreal, August 2010
  8. *‘Towards a Methodology for Business Ethics’, presented at the European Business Ethics Network (UK) conference, Bristol, April 2009
  9. ‘Personal Goodness, General Goodness, and Practical Ethics’, presented at the symposium on “Weighing Lives” by John Broome, St Andrews, October 2008

*Refereed