Profile: Fiona Woollard
BA Oxford, M.Litt St Andrews, PhD Reading
Biography
Fiona Woollard joined the department in September 2008 after completing her PhD at the University of Reading.
Research Interests
Fiona's main research interests are in normative ethics, in particular exploration of the nature and moral significance of deontological distinctions such as the distinction between doing and allowing harm. Her other research interests include applied ethics and the philosophy of sex. She has published papers on the distinction between doing and allowing, the distinction between action and omission, pornography and the norm of monogamy.
Current Projects
Fiona is currently refining her analysis of the distinction between doing and allowing and working on a new argument that the distinction between doing and allowing is morally significant. She will defend the Doctrine of Doing and Allowing (the claim that doing harm is harder to justify than allowing harm) by arguing that it should be understood as a principle protecting us against harmful imposition. If we are not protected against imposition, then nothing genuinely belongs to us, even our bodies.
She then plans to move upwards (exploring whether her arguments can support and be supported by general ethical theories) and downwards (exploring the implications in applied ethics, in particular for our obligations to respond to global poverty).
She also continues to pursue her side interest in the philosophy of sex. She is working on a co-authored paper exploring the lines we draw between "consummative sex" and "just fooling around", with Bryan R. Weaver. Additionally, in a solo project she considers the norms governing the use of erotic material within monogamous relationships.
Fiona is also working on issues in the Philosophy of Sex with Bryan R. Weaver. They are currently co-authoring a paper on Consummation.
Publications
"Most Ways I could Move: Comparing Subsets of the Behaviour Space in Bennett´s Act/Omission Distinction", Mind (forthcoming)
"Doing, Allowing and the Deliberative Requirement", Ratio (forthcoming June 2010)
"Cheating with Jenna: Monogamy, Pornography and Erotica", Dave Monroe (ed.) Porn & Philosophy: How to Think With Kink, Wiley-Blackwell, (forthcoming October 2010)
"Marriage and the Norm of Monogamy" (co-authored with Bryan R. Weaver), The Monist, Volume 91, No. 3-4 (July-October 2008).
"Doing and Allowing, Threats and Sequences", Pacific Philosophical Quarterly Volume 89, Issue 2 (June 2008): 261-277
Reviews and Critical Notices
Review of Sexual Solipicism by Rae Langton, Times Literary Supplement (forthcoming).
Review of The Reflective Life, by Valerie Tiberius, Philosophical Quarterly Volume 59, Number 236 (July 2009): 570-573.
"Intricate Ethics and Inviolability: Frances Kamm's Nonconsequentialism", Critical Notice, Ratio, Volume 21 Issue 2 (June 2008): 231-238.
Office Hours
Wednsdays: 2.15 - 4.15
Contact
f.woollard@sheffield.ac.uk
Room No. C26
Telephone No.
[01142]220589 [Internal: 20589]
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