Is it right to fear God? What is the difference between a destructive fear and a “holy trepidation”? An Advent homily by Fr Stephen Wang: Look around you at the chapel walls. Look at the […]
John Keown
John Keown is Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Christian Ethics at the Kennedy Institute of Ethics. Having graduated in law from Cambridge, he took a doctorate at Oxford. He was called to the Bar of England and Wales, winning the Prize for Advocacy. He soon became the first holder of a newly-created lectureship in the law and ethics of medicine at Cambridge, where he was elected to a Fellowship at Queens' College and, later, a Senior Research Fellowship at Churchill College.
Professor Keown's research has been cited by distinguished bodies worldwide, including the United States Supreme Court, the Law Lords, the House of Commons, the House of Lords Select Committee on Medical Ethics, and the Australian Senate, before which he was invited to testify. He has served as a member of the ethics committee of the British Medical Association and has been regularly consulted, not least by politicians and the media, on legal and ethical aspects of medicine.
He has also developed an interest in the ethics of war. His paper in the Journal of Catholic Social Thought was the first to consider whether America's War for Independence satisfied the criteria laid down by the 'just war' tradition.
He has also written a play based on one of the classic cases in bioethics: the trial of Dr. Leonard Arthur for the attempted murder of a newborn baby with Down's syndrome. Professor Keown has published widely in the law and ethics of medicine, specializing on issues at the beginning and end of life.
John Keown's Latest Posts
Physician-assisted Suicide: Some Reasons for Rejecting Lord Falconer’s Bill
I have just written a report about the Assisted Dying Bill which is available to read and download here at the Care Not Killing website. The title of the report is Physician-assisted Suicide: Some Reasons for […]
Reason, Morality, and Law: The Philosophy of John Finnis
John Keown, one of the Jericho Tree contributors, talks about his new co-edited volume on renowned legal philosopher, and leading authority on the law and ethics of medicine, John Finnis. Why did you decide to take on this […]
