David is a lecturer in ethics in the Centre for Professional Ethics at Keele University in the UK. Prior to that he was a lecturer in bioethics at the University of Ulster in Northern Ireland and prior to that a lecturer in philosophy at Massey University in New Zealand, the country he originated from, though he does also claim, via his grandmother, to be the worlds only Cook Island Maori bioethicist.

By background his training is in philosophy, concentrating on political philosophy and ethics, both theoretical and applied.

His main areas of research interest are:

1. Political philosophy in the context of health care, in particular questions of the distribution of health care resources, although he is now looking into issues of public health and global justice as well.

2. Research ethics, in particular the question of how research ethics committees might be structured and set up so that they can do their job well.

3. Ethical issues raised by new technologies, in particular the challenges they pose for systems of regulation.

4. Anything else he happens to be working on at the time.

He has fond ambitions to get back to doing something on philosophy of religion (which was the focus of his MA) but doubts it will happen anytime soon.

In terms of teaching, along with supervising PhD and MA students, he teaches on Keele’s MA in Medical Ethics and Law, MA in Research Ethics, MA in the Ethics of Policing and Criminal Justice, MA in the Ethics of Social Welfare and on Research Ethics training events for members of Research Ethics committees up and down (and even out of) the country.

Other than that he sits on the council of the Association of Research Ethics Committees, coordinates both the Ethical Issues in Resource Allocation and the Philosophy and Bioethics networks of the International Association of Bioethics, runs the Philosophy and Bioethics Universe, sits on two research ethics committees and dreams about having spare time. He isn’t that comfortable writing about himself in the third person, but is getting used to it…

If you really want more details about David, links to his publications etc you can find his university home page here and his full and vaguely up to date CV here.

You can contact him at d.hunter@peak.keele.ac.uk