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75Trans Women Are (or Are Becoming) Female: Disputing the Endogeneity ConstraintHypatia 37 (2): 384-401. 2022.The dispute between the transgender-rights movement and “gender-critical” activists represents a stark division in British public discourse. Although the issues of contention are numerous and require their own philosophical treatment, a core metaphysical concern underlies them. Gender-critical activists, such as Kathleen Stock, tend to argue that recognizing trans women as women requires erasing the category of biological sex. This implies that all trans women are male, and thus recognizing them…Read more
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20Supported Voting: A How‐To GuideJournal of Applied Philosophy 38 (4): 674-685. 2021.This article takes as its starting point the moral requirement to include persons with serious cognitive impairments in democratic decision‐making. That said, including such persons poses particular practical challenges to effective democratic participation. Nussbaum has set out the most extensive proposals for inclusion based on a model of guardianship, but we find they fall short due to not suitably respecting and facilitating the subjective decision‐making of impaired persons. Instead, we arg…Read more
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21The Indirect Approach: Towards Non-Dominating Dementia CareRes Publica 28 (3): 467-480. 2022.Carers often interfere with the choices of people living with dementia. On neorepublican and (most) relational egalitarian views, interference can be justified if it tracks a person's interests: if it does not lead to a relationship of domination. However, the kind of environment-shaping interventions carers often pursue would be considered infantilising or objectionably paternalistic in other cases. In this paper, I defend this indirect approach and argue that it offers the best prospects of de…Read more
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12The imperative of professional dementia careBioethics 37 (3): 292-302. 2023.Despite negative effects on their health and social lives, many informal carers of people living with dementia claim to be acting in accordance with a moral obligation. Indeed, feelings of failure and shame are commonly reported by those who later give up their caring responsibilities, suggesting a widespread belief that professional dementia care, whether delivered in the person's own home or in an institutional setting, ought always to be a last resort. In this paper, however, I suggest that t…Read more
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20Grief, trauma and mistaken identity: Ethically deceiving people living with dementia in complex casesBioethics 35 (9): 850-856. 2021.Across care settings, the practice of lying to or withholding the truth from people living with dementia is common, yet it is objected to by many. Contrary to this common discomfort, I have argued in previous work that respecting members of this group as moral equals sometimes requires deceiving them. In this paper, I test my proposed practice against complex, controversial cases, demonstrating both its theoretical strength and its practical value for those working in social care.
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33Minority Minds: Mental Disability and the Presumption of Value NeutralityJournal of Applied Philosophy 40 (2): 358-375. 2023.Elizabeth Barnes has recently developed an account of disability that is sensitive to the role of self-evaluation. To have a physical disability is, according to Barnes, to have a body that is merely different from the norm. Yet, as Barnes notes, some disabilities will genuinely frustrate some life plans. It may be the case, therefore, that a disability is instrumentally bad for a person and that acquiring one may be a genuine loss. Equally, however, a person may genuinely value a disability suc…Read more
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62Advance Directives: The Principle of Determining AuthenticityHastings Center Report 52 (1): 32-41. 2022.Hastings Center Report, Volume 52, Issue 1, Page 32-41, January/February 2022.
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University of GlasgowPost-doctoral Fellow
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Glasgow, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland