Department of Philosophy

Room A80

University of Stirling

Stirling

FK9 4LA
Scotland

UK

I joined the Department in 2002 shortly after completing my PhD - on the justification of property rights - at the University of Cambridge. Before my postgraduate research, I worked on tax policy as a civil servant in HM Treasury.

My research focuses on the analysis and justification of rights and duties, paying particular attention to the varying ways that different types of rights (eg 'human rights', property rights, promissory rights, legal rights) are justified.  

In pursuing this research, I engage in a range of philosophical-political problems: the moral relationship between the individual, the family and wider groups; the distinction between positive and negative rights, and the impact of this issue on the morality of charity and global poverty; the nature of the rectificatory duties generated when rights are violated; the history of theories of rights, including in particular Hobbes, Locke, Hume and Kant; metaethical problems in the foundations of rights including comparison of constructivist and foundationalist approaches; Hohfeld's analytical framework and its relationship to the interest theory/will theory debate in the conceptual analysis of rights; the individuation of rights; the analysis of 'human rights' and the legitimacy of their claim to universality.  

A guiding aim of my research is to demonstrate how philosophical positions bear on the justification of public policies.

Please click here for a list of my publications.