I am a moral philosopher working on questions about the moral and political status of groups of vulnerable people - including people with profound cognitive impairments, people with dementia, people seeking assistance to end their lives and people caught up in war and violent conflict. I am also interested in degrading treatment and punishment as this applies to prisoners and other persons in detention. The common themes are human dignity and respect for persons. Areas of interest also include: capability, dependency, personhood, citizenship, moral status, rights and the social model of disability. 

A principal area of research is the moral and political status of people with profound and multiple learning difficulties: there is a practical aspect - learning from and working with teachers, carers and parents involved in special schools - and a theoretical aspect - a series of philosophical questions about children and adults whose cognitive impairments do not allow them to engage in these questions for themselves.