Janet Radcliffe Richards  is Professor of Practical Philosophy at the University of Oxford, and Distinguished Research Fellow at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics.  Earlier, she was Lecturer in Philosophy at the Open University, and then Director of the Centre for Bioethics in the medical school at University College London.  She is a philosopher who originally specialized in metaphysics and philosophy of science, but has now for many years concentrated on the practical applications of philosophy, and is the author of The Sceptical Feminist (1980) and Human Nature after Darwin (2000).  She was drawn into transplant ethics some time ago when a short newspaper article of hers was picked up by transplant surgeons, and she has since been a frequent speaker at transplant conferences around the world.   “The Ethics of Transplants: why careless thought costs lives” was published in the UK in March 2012. Continue reading →