| Citation | Onora O'Neill deserves to be recognised by the Royal Society by election to Honorary Fellowhsip, for her outstanding contribution to the defence of reason and her rigorous philosophical and ethical analyses of controversial topics in science, and particularly in the biosciences.
She is widely recognised as the UK's foremost moral philospher and is distinguished - and internationally recognised - for her elabortions of Kantian concepts of autonomy and of morality based on reason.
In her Gifford lectures in Edinburgh (2001, published as 'Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics', COP 2002) followwed by her BBC Reith Lectures of 2002 ('A Question of Trust'), she applied this philosophical viewpoint to concepts of justice and of trust and dissected in a highly original and compelling analysis why it is that lack of trust and suspiciaon - of politicians, professionals, scientists, the Press, indeed everybody - so dominates our current society and have led to such a corrosive atmosphere of over-regulation and hyper-reactive legislation. She explored with great subtlety the interrelationships of autonomy, consent, dignity, repect, trust and responsibility, and how these are influenced by the prevailing "audit culture"; and concluded that lack of trust is ultimately self-defeating.
Professor O'Neill is not only a distinguished academic philosopher, but has engaged herself in the world of policy. She was a member, and then Chair of the Human Genetics Advisory Commission, and played an important role in reports on Genetics in relation to Insurance and to Employment. She was a member and then chaired the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, and was involved in such landmark reports as Genetic Screening (1993), and Human Tissues (1995). She then became Chair of the Nuffield Foundation. She was made a Life Peer in 1999, and made important contributions to the debate on the Human Tissue Act, and on stem cell research. She has been President of the British Academy since 2005 and is a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.
Onora O'Neill is an intellectually distinguished philosopher whose arguments have been highly influential in providing insights into complex issues arising from modern advances in basic science, particularly in genetics, medicine and biotechnology. She has thereby rendered signal service to the cause of science. |