John Morley Harris, FMedSci,

FRSA The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

, FRSB (born 21 August 1945), is a British

bioethicist Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, m ...

and philosopher. He is the Lord Alliance Professor of Bioethics and Director of the Institute for Science, Ethics and Innovation at the

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The university owns and operates majo ...

Education

Harris was educated at the

University of Kent , motto_lang = , mottoeng = Literal translation: 'Whom to serve is to reign'(Book of Common Prayer translation: 'whose service is perfect freedom')Graham Martin, ''From Vision to Reality: the Making of the University of Kent at Canterbury'' ...

gaining a

Bachelor of Arts Bachelor of arts (BA or AB; from the Latin ', ', or ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate program in the arts, or, in some cases, other disciplines. A Bachelor of Arts degree course is generally completed in three or four yea ...

degree in 1966 and

Balliol College, Oxford Balliol College () is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. One of Oxford's oldest colleges, it was founded around 1263 by John I de Balliol, a landowner from Barnard Castle in County Durham, who provided the ...

where he was awarded a

Doctor of Philosophy A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

degree in 1976 from the Faculty of Literae Humaniores.

Career

Harris was one of the Founder Directors of the International Association of Bioethics and is a founder member of the Board of the journal ''

Bioethics Bioethics is both a field of study and professional practice, interested in ethical issues related to health (primarily focused on the human, but also increasingly includes animal ethics), including those emerging from advances in biology, med ...

'' and a member of the editorial board of the Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics. He is also the joint Editor-in-Chief of the

Journal of Medical Ethics The ''Journal of Medical Ethics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal covering the field of bioethics that was established in 1975. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2019 impact factor of 2.021, ranking it fou ...

. Throughout his career, he has defended broadly

libertarian Libertarianism (from french: libertaire, "libertarian"; from la, libertas, "freedom") is a political philosophy that upholds liberty as a core value. Libertarians seek to maximize autonomy and political freedom, and minimize the state's e ...

consequentialist In ethical philosophy, consequentialism is a class of normative ethics, normative, Teleology, teleological ethical theories that holds that the wikt:consequence, consequences of one's Action (philosophy), conduct are the ultimate basis for judgm ...

approaches to issues in bioethics.''The Value of Life'' (1985)

Awards

* Fellow of the United Kingdom

Academy of Medical Sciences The Academy of Medical Sciences is an organisation established in the UK in 1998. It is one of the four UK National Academies, the others being the British Academy, the Royal Academy of Engineering and the Royal Society. Its mission is to ad ...

(FMedSci) in 2001, the first philosopher to have been elected to Fellowship of the then new National Academy * Fellow of The

Royal Society of Arts The Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce (RSA), also known as the Royal Society of Arts, is a London-based organisation committed to finding practical solutions to social challenges. The RSA acronym is used m ...

in 2006 * Member of the Romanian Academy of Medical Sciences, 1994 * Medal of the

University of Helsinki The University of Helsinki ( fi, Helsingin yliopisto, sv, Helsingfors universitet, abbreviated UH) is a public research university located in Helsinki, Finland since 1829, but founded in the city of Turku (in Swedish ''Åbo'') in 1640 as the ...

, 1995 * Honorary Member of The International Forum for Biophilosophy, 2001 * Fellow of The Hastings Centre, 2004 * D.Litt. (honoris causa),

, 2010

References

External links

University of Manchester profile

John Harris
at ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'' {{DEFAULTSORT:Harris, John Living people 1945 births Bioethicists British philosophers Academics of the University of Manchester Alumni of the University of Kent Alumni of Balliol College, Oxford Fellows of the Academy of Medical Sciences (United Kingdom) British libertarians Consequentialists Fellows of the Royal Society of Biology