Department of Philosophy
Faculty Information

Joan McGregor

University of Arizona
Philosophy of Law, Social and Political Philosophy, Ethics

Joan McGregor has a Ph.D. in Philosophy and during her graduate work studied law as well. She is the Lincoln Professor of Bioethics, part of the Joan and David Lincoln Center for Applied Ethics. McGregor was the founding director of the Bioethics, Policy, and Law program at ASU for four years and has affiliation with a number of programs and departments at ASU and the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.  McGregor’s current research interests are focused on the moral and legal questions of informed consent whether in the clinical or research setting. Respect for persons requires the moral legitimacy of consent in the bio-medical setting and yet in many of these contexts, individuals find themselves vulnerable and the validity of their consent is in question. McGregor addresses the subtle influences that affect individuals’ choices and what should be done to militate against the forces that can undermine voluntariness. One area of current interest for informed consent is in the context of donating organs, particularly, with the new guidelines for donation after cardiac death. McGregor has on-going collaboration with Mayo faculty addressing the ethics of organ donation. Other medical domains where questions of informed consent are problematic are when individuals are seeking treatments for infertility. A major area of research is in the area of consent to be a subject in research; here McGregor is questioning the moral adequacy of the protections of human subjects in research. She has recently collaborated with Rebecca Tsosie (Director Indian Legal Program in the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law) on research directed to the ethical and legal issues involved in doing genetic research with groups, particularly marginalized groups such as Native Americans. Current research on the ethical issues with genetics and groups has focused on the use of racial classifications in bio-medical research with biological materials from bio-banks. Responsible conduct in research, both the micro and macro issues of research, both research integrity and the social implications of research, have been a on-going research and teaching concerns for McGregor, with a new project on teaching and researching the ethics of emerging technologies.

Selected Publications

"'Undue Inducement' as Coercive Offers" The American Journal of Bioethics (forthcoming)

Is It Rape?: On Acquaintance Rape and Taking Women's Consent Seriously (Live Questions in Ethics and Moral Philosophy) 2005 Ashgate Publishing

"Bioethics in a Culturally Diverse World" War and Border Crossing: Ethics when Cultures Clash, Ed. Peter French (Rowman and Littlefield, 2005)

"Civility, Civic Virtue, and Citizenship," in Civility and its Discontents, ed. Christine Sistare (Lawrence: University of Kansas, 2004) 25 - 43.

Culture Clash in Bioethics in Culture Clash (Blackwell Publishers, in press)

Law's Failure to Protect Women's Sexual Autonomy as Injustice, in Proceeding The Twentieth World congress of the International Association for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy, 2003

Genetic Frontier is Full of Ethical Bumps, The Arizona Republic, June, 2002

Did Allegiance to the RULE OF LAW dictate Hanging Billy Budd?: or Is the Rule of Law consistent with judges exercising discretion in sentencing? APA Newsletter on Law and Philosophy, Vol 02, 1 2002

Value, Ethics, and Personal Responsibility, editor, wrote Chapters 1, 2, and 11, 2000."

Filling up on Alt-Fuel's Moral Issues," The Arizona Republic, October 2000

"Group Values and Liberal Democracy" in On Groups and Group Rights, Lawrence: Kansas University Press, 2000

"Property Rights and Environmental Protection: Is this Land Made for You and Me," Arizona State Law Journal, Spring 1999

"This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land: Reflections on the Property Rights and the Environment" in Journal of Environment Law and Litigation, Fall 1997

"Why When She Says No She Doesn't Mean Maybe and Doesn't Mean Yes: A Critical Reconstruction of Consent, Sex, and the Law" in Legal Theory 2 (1996)

Curriculum Vitae