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Dr Neil Manson
Senior Lecturer in Philosophy
Department: Politics, Philosophy and Religion PPR
Degree: BA Philosophy King's College London MPHIL Philosophy University College London DPhil Philosophy University of Oxford
Associated research centres and groups: Centre for Bioethics and Medical Law, Philosophy of Mind and Psychology
Current Teaching
PHIL100 - Introduction to Philosophy
PPR.205: Knowledge and Reality
PPR.307: History of Twentieth Century Philosophy
Research Interests
Neil C. Manson studied philosophy in London , taking his BA at King's College London in 1992 and his MPhil at University College London in 1995. He then went to Corpus Christi College Oxford, gaining his DPhil in 1998 with a thesis entitled Conscious Thought. From 1998 to 2005 he had two research fellowships at King's College Cambridge. He has taught philosophy in London, Oxford and Cambridge.
His research is, broadly, to do with the ethics of communication and information. It falls into four broad, interconnected, areas:
Consent, informed consent, and the ethics of communication.
Consent and informed consent are central elements of our contemporary regulatory environment. My research focuses on the conceptual and ethical underpinnings of informed consent by situating informed consent in a broader framework that focuses on the normative aspects of communication and knowledge and upon the importance of the metaphors that shape our thinking about communication and knowledge. He is working on issues to do with how consent transactions involve communication for a variety of ethically salient reasons (other than just ensuring validity of consent); he is developing an alternative history of informed consent, where informed consent is viewed as a product of a practice of seeking legal remedy for communicative wrongs via certain kinds of legal channel; he is also interested in how consent relates to, differs from, and can be integrated with, other ways of rendering actions permissible (what he calls "mixed permission" models) and in how consent and other kinds of institution and acts)have normative force
Part of this ongoing research project is focused on questions to do with the scope limits and future of consent and informed consent. He recently held an AHRC workshop grant, with Prof Dave Archard, for an international project "The Future of Consent" involving participants from the UK, USA and China.
The ethics of spin and selective interpretation
Still within the broad heading of the ethics of communication a second research area is "spin". There is much talk about (and complaints about) "spin" (especially political spin). Truthful spin is viewed by many as a form of deception. Whilst truthful spin can deceive there are reasons why such a view is inadequate - spin involves a distinctive kind of (mulitply) selective interpretation (selecting aspects of a situation; lexis; evaluative and rhetorical elements); such interpretations are constructed with the aim of gaining attention and advantage in competitive promotional communicative contexts; whilst some spin aims to deceive; other spin simply aims to ensure acceptance of the interpretation; other spin is "pandering" and not deceptive. Clarity about the complex and heterogeneous nature of spin is an essential precondition of its proper ethical evaluation.
The virtues of not knowing (the vice of curiosity); the foundations of information privacy
In recent years there has been a great deal of work on epistemic virtues - these virtues are typically viewed as the traits that are relevant to reliably acquiring knowledge. But sometimes it is virtuous to refrain from seeking knowledge (or to avoid gaining it). I have an interest in spelling out just what these virtues are and in applying the notion of epistemic restraint to issues to do with the ethics of information privacy, trust, and the ethics of audit and monitoring.
Potential Doctoral Proposals
Ethics of communication and information.
Informed consent
Decision making in a medical context
Consent as a communicative act.
Medical communication.
The ethics of spin, PR and media.
The ethics of secrecy and concealment.
The nature and ethical significance of genetic information.
Information privacy and epistemic virtue.
The vice of curiosity.
Applied ethics and social epistemology.
Work in progress/under review
(i) (with Dave Archard) Making a difference: the wrongfulness of withholding medical information
(ii) The Ethics of Spin (under review Journal of Applied Philosophy)
(iii) Normative Consent is not consent. (in preparation for Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics
(iv) The vice of curiosity
(v) What is spin?
(vi) Rethinking the history of informed consent
Selected Publications
MONOGRAPH
(2007) with Onora O'Neill Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
EDITED COLLECTION
(2012 forthcoming) Reading Onora O'Neill (ed. with Dave Archard, Monique Deveaux, Daniel Weinstock) (Routledge)
FULL-LENGTH ARTICLES & BOOK CHAPTERS
(2012 forthcoming) 'Epistemic restraint and the vice of curiosity' Philosophy
(2012 forthcoming) 'First-person authority: an epistemic pragmatic account' Mind and Language
(2012 forthcoming) 'Consent and Referential Opacity' in Reading Onora O'Neill (Routledge)
(2012- forthcoming) 'Normative consent is not consent' Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics
(2011) 'Why does consciousness mean what it does?' Metaphilosophy 42. 1-2, 98-117
(2010) 'Why do patients want information, if not to make decisions?' Journal of Medical Ethics 36: 834-837
(2009 ) 'The medium and the message: tissue samples, genetic information and data protection legislation' in H. Widdows and C. Mullen (eds) Who Decides: Exploring the Governance of Genetic Information. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(2007) 'Contemporary naturalism and the concept of consciousness,' Consciousness: From Perception to Reflection in the HIstory of Philosophy. ed. by Sara Heinämaa and Pauliina Remes, Springer, 287-310
(2006) What is genetic information and why is it significant? Journal of Applied Philosophy 23:1 1-16
(2004) 'Reason explanation: a first-order normative account,' Philosophical Explorations, 7, 2, 113-130
(2004) 'Brains, vats and neurally-controlled animats' Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 35, 2, 249-268
(2003) 'Consciousness' in B. Smith (ed.) John Searle. New York: Cambridge University Press, 128-153
(2003) 'Freud's own blend: functional analysis, idiographic explanation, and the extension of ordinary psychology,' Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society II, 179-195
(2002) 'What does language tell us about consciousness? First-person mental discourse and higher-order thought theories of consciousness' Philosophical Psychology 15, 2002, 221-238
(2002) 'Epistemic Consciousness' Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 33 (2002) 425-441
(2000) 'A tumbling-ground for whimsies? The history and contemporary role of the conscious/unconscious contrast' in Tim Crane and Sara Patterson (eds) The History of the Mind-Body Problem (London: Routledge, 2000) 148-168
SHORTER ARTICLES
(2011) 'Consciousness and the Unconscious' Encylopedia of the Mind ed H. Pashler (Sage)
(2010) 'Informed Consent' in H. LaFollette, J.Deigh, and S. Stroud (eds) International Encyclopedia of Ethics (Wiley)
(2009) 'Epistemic Inertia and Epistemic Isolationism' Journal of Applied Philosophy
(2007) 'Consent and Informed Consent,' Richard Ashcroft, Angus Dawson, Heather Draper and John McMillan (eds.), Principles of Health Care Ethics (2 nd ed), London , John Wiley, 297-304
(2007) (with Mairi Levitt) 'My genes made me do it? The implications of behavioural genetics for responsibility and blame,' Health Care Analysis (forthcoming)
(2005) How not to think about genetic information. Hastings Center Report 35, 4 July 2005 (3)
(2004) 'Presenting behavioural genetics: spin, ideology and our narrative interests' Journal of Medical Ethics 30, 601-604
(2003) 'Why is consciousness a mongrel concept?' London Review of Philosophy 1, Spring, 24-30
(2001) 'The limitations and costs of Lycan's "simple" argument.' Analysis 61, 319-323.
(2000) 'State consciousness and creature consciousness: a real distinction,' Philosophical Psychology 13, 3, 405-410
CRITICAL NOTICES/BOOK SYMPOSIA
(2005) 'Consciousness-dependence and the conscious/unconscious contrast' Philosophical Studies Book Symposium on J. Campbell's Reference and Consciousness, 126, 115-129
(2002) 'Consciousness-dependence and the explanatory gap' Review discussion of J. Levine's Purple Haze, Inquiry, 45, 1-20
Applied philosophy/public policy
Neil Manson is currently treasurer of the Society of Applied Philosophy and is on the management committee of the Journal of Applied Philosophy.
Spring 2008- invited member of the NHS Organ Donation Taskforce 'Ethics Working Group', working on issues to do with consent (e.g., opt-in, opt out, mandated choice) for organ donation.
March 08 -invited participant and respondent, British Academy workshop: 'Philosophy and Public Policy'.
May 08 - invited participant, MRC/Wellcome workshop: 'Regulation and Biomedical Research'
May 08 - invited participant, UK) Human Tissue Authority workshop on directed deceased (organ) donation.
July 08 - invited participant, Nuffield Council on Bioethics fact-finding meeting on (ethics of) dementia.
April 09 - invited speaker/participant in Public Health Genetics Foundation/CRASSH workshop 'Policy, Groups and Populations in a Genomic Era'
Jan 10 - invited participant in AHRC/Human Genetics Commission seminar 'Understanding Genetic Discrimination'
Jun 10 invited participant in Technology Strategy Board 'Knowledge sharing and extending the frontiers of knowledge' workshop.
Jan 11 invited speaker/participant AHRC/HFEA/SAP workshop 'Ethical issues in gamete and embryo donation'
Eprints Publications Repository and Bibliographic Database
Neil Manson has 9 selected publication records listed on this webpage. Use links to access abstracts and full text where available. View all records to sort by date, type and title. For all ePrints records go to http://eprints.lancs.ac.uk
Other Interests and Hobbies
His leisure time is spent avoiding DIY, in the much more enjoyable pursuit of loafing around, and exploring the beautiful countryside around Lancaster with his family - Liz, Daisy, Nell and Laurie and Lucy the Dog - who have kindly learned to- or at least appear to - tolerate his poor jokes and quips (even Lucy knows when to sigh). On a rare occasion he finds a few minutes or so to play a bit of guitar.
He is not identical with another philosopher called Neil Manson: Neil A. Manson. If you are looking for the Neil Manson with an interest in metaphysics, philosophy of religion (especially the design argument) you will find him (or, rather, his webpage) here.
Associated Keywords: Bioethics, Confidentiality, Emotions, Emotions and affect, Ethical philosophy, Ethics, Ethics of communication, Ethics of genetics, Freud, History of philosophy, Information society, Knowledge, Language politics, Media, Medical ethics, Moral philosophy, News framing, Norms, Philosophy, Policy, Pragmatics, Propaganda, Public policy, Reasons, Unconscious mind
View all research activities, ePrints, news and events associated with Neil Manson.
Contact Details
Tel: +44 (0)1524 594668
Room: County South, B51
Office Hour: Wednesdays 11-1pm
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Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
Lancaster University
Lancaster LA1 4YD
United Kingdom Tel: +44 (0) 1524 510851
Fax: +44 (0) 1524 510857
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