Jonathan Lewis

Jonathan is Lecturer in Ethics in the School of Law and Lecturer in Law and Ethics in the School of Medicine, Ulster University.

Prior to joining Ulster University, Jonathan was Assistant Professor in the Centre for Biomedical Ethics, Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine at the National University of Singapore. Before that, he was Lecturer in Medical Law and Bioethics at the University of Manchester. For his contributions to and achievements in research whilst at the University of Manchester, Jonathan was awarded the Research Staff of the Year Award as part of the university’s Research Excellence Awards 2023.

His research is cross-disciplinary, situated at the intersections of law, bioethics, philosophy, cognitive science, and health policy.

In law, Jonathan has published on experimental jurisprudence, human rights, mental health law, racial (in)justice and international drug law, the regulation of biomedical research and new biotechnologies, international abortion legislation, assisted dying, and the function of the courts in cases involving vulnerable individuals and children. 

In the field of bioethics, Jonathan has published on the ethics of new and emerging biotechnologies, human embryo research, genomics, the ethics of biomedical research, the concept of autonomy in clinical practice, healthcare policy and law, and the moral rights of vulnerable individuals, children, geriatric and minority groups. He has also been heavily involved in establishing experimental bioethics (“bioxphi”)—a subdiscipline of experimental philosophy and bioethics—as a specific field of research.

Jonathan is Editor-in-Chief of Clinical Ethics and co-editor of the “Experimental Philosophy: Bioethics” section of PhilPapers.

Jonathan is also a Research Collaborator in The Philosophical Moral Psychology Lab (The Uehiro Institute, University of Oxford), where he is part of a multidisciplinary team of scholars employing the methods of cognitive science to contribute to debates in bioethics and medical law. 

Jonathan conducted doctoral research in philosophy at Royal Holloway, University of London, where he was the recipient of the Crossland Scholarship and the College Research Scholarship,

Areas of Specialisation:          

Bioethics; Cognitive Science;  Experimental Bioethics; Feminist Legal Studies/Philosophy; Human Rights Law; Jurisprudence; Medical Law; Moral and Legal Psychology, Philosophy of Law; Philosophy of Medicine 

Areas of Competence:        

Health Policy; Neuroethics; Public Health Ethics; Tort Law

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.

Students interested in pursuing doctoral research projects in any area of philosophical bioethics, experimental bioethics, or medical law are more than welcome to contact me to discuss their ideas.