Jonathan is Research Fellow in Bioethics and Medical Law.

His research is situated at the intersections of bioethics, philosophy, medical law, moral psychology, cognitive science, and health policy.

In the field of bioethics, Jonathan has published on the ethics of new and emerging biotechnologies, the ethics of biomedical research, the application of moral psychology, its theories, and concepts to clinical practice and health policy, and the rights of vulnerable individuals, children, and minority groups. He has also been heavily involved in establishing experimental bioethics (“bioxphi”) as a specific field of research.  

In terms of medical law, Jonathan has published on experimental jurisprudence, the tensions between capacity law, mental health law, and human rights law, racial justice and drug laws, the regulation of biomedical research and new and emerging medicinal products and devices, international abortion legislation, physician assisted dying and euthanasia, and the roles of the Court of Protection and the High Court in cases involving vulnerable individuals and children. 

Jonathan is Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Ethics, member of the Editorial Board for BMC Medical Ethics, and co-editor of the “Experimental Philosophy: Bioethics” section of PhilPapers.

Jonathan is also a Research Collaborator in the Oxford BioXphi Lab (Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, University of Oxford), where he is part of a multidisciplinary team of scholars employing the methods of moral psychology, cognitive science, and experimental philosophy to contribute to substantive normative and philosophical debates in bioethics and medical law.

With Søren Holm, he is Co-Principal Investigator for the HYBRIDA project (‘Embedding a Comprehensive Ethical Dimension to Organoid-based Research and Resulting Technologies’; SwafS-Horizon 2020). 

Prior to joining the University of Manchester, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Dublin City University, where he was Co-Principal Investigator for the EnTIRE project (‘Mapping Normative Frameworks for Ethics and Integrity of Research’; Horizon 2020) as well as Investigator for the INBOTs project (‘Inclusive Robotics for a Better Society’; Horizon 2020).

Jonathan conducted doctoral research in philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he was the recipient of a Crossland Scholarship and a College Research Scholarship, and he has worked as a researcher on a number of collaborative policy-oriented projects involving health care providers, public health organisations, legal institutions, professional bodies and academics at the intersections of ethics, law, public health and health policy.

AOS: Bioethics; Medical Law; Medical Ethics; Experimental Bioethics, Experimental Jurisprudence, Philosophy of Medicine, Moral Psychology, Cognitive Science, Jurisprudence, Feminist Philosophy

AOC: Public Health Ethics, Neuroethics, Philosophy of Science 

Jonathan has successfully supervised doctoral research projects and Master’s dissertations to completion across a broad range of areas in bioethics, medical law, applied and normative ethics.

‘Racial Justice Requires Ending the War on Drugs’ (The American Journal of Bioethics with Brian D. Earp (Yale University/University of Oxford) and Carl L. Hart (Columbia University), January 2021)

• Featured in press releases for The Irish Times, The Canary, The Daily Express, Daily Star, Morning Star, Taylor and Francis News, Sify, EurekAlert! and local news outlets in the UK;
• With responses from the UK Home Office and the Metropolitan Police;
• Interviewed by RTÉ Radio 1.

Published Report (with A.C. Grayling): ‘A Case for the Humanities’ (January 2012). Featured in The Guardian, The Independent and Times Higher Education. Interviewed by BBC and Channel 4.