Ben Davies

School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities

Lecturer in Political Philosophy

PGR Seminar Lead

A photo of Ben Davies.
Profile picture of A photo of Ben Davies.
ben.davies@sheffield.ac.uk
9 Mappin Street

Full contact details

Ben Davies
School of History, Philosophy and Digital Humanities
9 Mappin Street
Sheffield
S1 4DT
Profile

Ben joined the Department of Philosophy in September 2023 as Lecturer in Political Philosophy. Before that, he was a Research Fellow at the Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics at the University of Oxford, as well as teaching in Leeds and the US. He studied at King’s College London and the University of Edinburgh.

Research interests

Ben is primarily interested in the ethics and politics of health care. In the past, this has included topics such as intergenerational justice; patient and practitioner responsibility; and the idea of ‘sufficiency’ in health provision. He is now developing work on how democratic health priority-making decisions should be, and what this would look like in practice. He is interested in working with people who work in healthcare priority-setting at any level. 

As well as this central focus, Ben has research interests in: 

  • Ageing
  • Animal ethics
  • Autonomy
  • Disability, especially its challenge to mainstream ethics and political theory
  • Discrimination
  • Professional ethics
  • Satisficing
  • Well-being and prudence

He is happy to hear from MA and PhD students interested in these topics, or other topics in bioethics broadly construed. 

Publications

Edited books

  • Davies B, Levy N, De Marco G & Savulescu J (Eds.) (2024) . Oxford University PressOxford.

Journal articles

  • Davies B (2025) . American Journal of Bioethics, 25(4), W3-W7.
  • Davies B & Schramme T (2025) . Public Health Ethics, 18(1).
  • Davies B (2024) . Bioethics, 38(9), 823-824.
  • Davies B (2024) . Ethic@: an International Journal for Moral Philosophy, 22(3), 1048-1062.
  • Davies B & Parker J (2024) . Monash Bioethics Review, 42(1), 1-15.
  • Moriarty CM & Davies B (2024) . Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 27(2), 167-183.
  • Davies B & Savulescu J (2024) . The Journal of Value Inquiry, 58, 215-234.
  • Davies B (2023) . Ethics, Policy & Environment.
  • Davies B (2023) . Analysis, 83(4), 673-682.
  • Davies B (2023) . Clinical Ethics, 18(3), 287-291.
  • Park JK & Davies B (2023) . The American Journal of Bioethics, 24(7), 66-79.
  • Davies B (2023) . Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 32(2), 174-185.
  • Zohny H, Davies B & Wilkinson D (2022) . Bioethics, 36(9), 970-977.
  • Davies B (2022) . Utilitas, 34(3), 335-343.
  • Davies B & Parker J (2022) . Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 31(1), 23-33.
  • Davies B (2022) . Ratio, 35(2), 112-122.
  • Davies B (2021) . Public Health Ethics, 14(3), 268-280.
  • Davies B (2021) . Journal of Medical Ethics, 47(2), 98-99.
  • Davies B & Savulescu J (2021) . Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, 24(1), 137-150.
  • Davies B & Savulescu J (2020) . Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 17(3), 423-433.
  • Parker J & Davies B (2020) . Journal of Applied Philosophy, 37(4), 646-660.
  • Davies B (2020) . Journal of Medical Ethics, 46(5), 309-310.
  • Davies B (2020) . Journal of Medical Ethics, 46(5), 300-303.
  • Davies B (2020) . Bioethics, 34(5), 459-466.
  • Davies B & Savulescu J (2019) . Public Health Ethics, 12(2), 133-144.
  • Davies B (2019) . Utilitas, 31(2), 191-202.
  • Davies B (2018) . Journal of Applied Philosophy, 35(4), 775-789.
  • Davies B & Felappi G (2017) . Metaphilosophy, 48(5), 745-761.
  • Davies B (2017) . De Ethica, 3(3), 5-19.
  • Davies B (2017) . Moral Philosophy and Politics, 4(2), 325-346.
  • Davies B (2017) . Philosophy & Technology, 30(3), 339-356.
  • Davies B (2016) . Bioethics, 30(6), 462-468.
  • Davies B (2015) Justice Between the Young and the Old. SOCIOLOGICKY CASOPIS-CZECH SOCIOLOGICAL REVIEW, 51(3), 562-566.

Book chapters

  • Parker J & Davies B (2024) , Responsibility and Healthcare (pp. 247-268). Oxford University PressOxford
  • Davies B, De Marco G, Levy N & Savulescu J (2024) , Responsibility and Healthcare (pp. 1-32). Oxford University PressOxford
  • Davies B & Douglas T (2022) Learning to Discriminate: The Perfect Proxy Problem in Artificially Intelligent Criminal Sentencing In Ryberg J & Roberts JV (Ed.), Sentencing and Artificial Intelligence
Research group

Please get in touch if you are interested in being supervised in topics in political philosophy and applied ethics, especially related to health and health care, broadly construed.

Teaching activities

HPH357 Global Justice (Autumn)

HPH215 Bioethics (Spring)