The Athena Lecture Onora O’Neill has been President of the British Academy since 2005. She was elected to the Fellowship of the Academy in 1993. She writes on ethics and political philosophy, with particular interests in questions of international justice, in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant and in bioethics. Her books include Faces of Hunger: An Essay on Poverty, Development and Justice (Harper Collins, 1986), Constructions of Reason: Exploration of Kant's Practical Philosophy (Cambridge University Press, 1989), Towards Justice and Virtue: A Constructive Account of Practical Reasoning (Cambridge University Press, 1996), Bounds of Justice (Cambridge University Press, 2000), Autonomy and Trust in Bioethics (Cambridge University Press, 2002), A Question of Trust: The BBC Reith Lectures 2002 (Cambridge University Press, 2002) and most recently Rethinking Informed Consent in Bioethics ((co-authored) Cambridge University Press, 2007).
Baroness O’Neill chairs the Nuffield Foundation and is Professor of Philosophy at the University of Cambridge. She has been a member of and chaired the Nuffield Council on Bioethics and the Human Genetics Advisory Commission, and was closely involved in work on a number of reports on bio-medical issues. She was formerly Principal of Newnham College, Cambridge. She was created a Life Peer in 1999 (Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve), sits as a crossbencher, and has served on House of Lords Select Committees on Stem Cell Research and BBC Charter Review.
