Dr Thomas Douglas

Qualifications

BMedSc (Otago), MB ChB (Otago), BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics (Balliol College, Oxon).

Role or Position

Senior Scholar and DPhil Candidate (Philosophy).

Email address

thomas.douglas@chch.ox.ac.uk

Academic Background

I began my university education as a medical student at the University of Otago (New Zealand). During my studies, I became interested in philosophy, especially ethics. I wrote a Bachelor of Medical Science thesis on the philosophical underpinnings of accident law, and on finishing my medical degree, I came to Oxford to study philosophy and economics at Balliol College. I completed my 'second BA' in 2005, and since then I have been working on my doctorate in philosophy, first at Balliol, and now at Christ Church.

Undergraduate Teaching

Philosophy of Social Science, Ethics, Theory of Politics.

Research Interests

I am primarily interested in two areas where ethics and medicine come into contact: the ethics of medicine/biomedical science, and the biological underpinnings of ethics. I'm writing my thesis on the ethics of human enhancement, a topic which allows me to pursue both of these interests. I've also worked (or am working) in several other areas where the techniques of analytic philosophy can be brought to bear on public policy debates: policymaking under uncertainty, organ procurement policy, the ethics of ethics committees, and corrective/distributive justice.

Publications include:

Douglas T, ‘Should Institutions Prioritize Rectification over Aid?’, forthcoming in Philosophical Quarterly.

Douglas T, ‘Intertemporal Disagreement and Empirical Slippery Slope Arguments’, forthcoming in Utilitas 2010;22(2).

Douglas T, ‘Moral Enhancement’, forthcoming in R ter Meulen, J Savulescu, G Kahane (eds.) Enhancing Human Capacities (Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010).

Douglas T, ‘Medical Injury Compensation: Beyond “No-Fault”’, Medical Law Review 2009; 17(1):30-51.

Douglas T, Savulescu J, ‘Destroying Unwanted Embryos in Research’, EMBO Reports 2009; 10(4):307-312.

Douglas T, Douglas NM, ‘Absence of Significant Dissent Should be Sufficient for Deceased Donor Organ Procurement in New Zealand’, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health 2009;33(5):449-454.

Douglas T, ‘Moral Enhancement’, Journal of Applied Philosophy 2008; 25(3):228-245.

More available here: http://sites.google.com/site/tomdouglasacademic/research,

Hobbies

Cross country running, cricket, sailing, fencing.

Links

Website: http://sites.google.com/site/tomdouglasacademic