I am a writer and a Fellow of Exeter College, University of Oxford.
My books stray into many fields, including law, philosophy, natural history, anthropology, archaeology, travel, evolutionary biology and theology. Ultimately they are all attempts to answer the questions ‘Who or what are we?’, and ‘What on earth are we doing here?’.
I do a good deal of writing that would be classified as non-academic (although I don’t acknowledge any significant distinction between academic and non-academic writing). A recent example is Being a Beast, which is a New York Times Bestseller, was long-listed for the Baillie Gifford Prize (the ‘non-fiction Booker’) and the Wainwright Prize for Nature Writing, won the Deux Millions d’Amis literary prize (France), and the IgNobel prize for Biology in 2016.
That book, like most of my other non-academic writing, explores themes directly pertinent to my academic research (such as: Are humans special? How plastic is our identity? Can we know enough about the world to be able to make informed decisions?)
A sequel, Being a Human: Adventures in 40,000 years of consciousness (2021) examines three seismic epochs in the history of consciousness: the Upper Palaeolithic, the Neolithic and the Enlightenment.
My book The Screaming Sky (Little Toller, 2021) was shortlisted for the Wainwright Prize.
Recent and forthcoming books include a novel which seeks to recruit the voices of non-humans in telling a human story (Little Brown Sea, 2022, which was long-listed for the Anglo-Hellenic League Runciman Award), a book of short stories (The Cry of the Wild: Tales of sea, woods and hill: Doubleday/Penguin, 2023) which illustrates the challenges faced by various non-human species of living alongside us, an examination of contemporary apostasy (Faiths Lost and Found (with Martyn Percy): Darton Longman and Todd, 2023), and a study of the science and law of human/wildlife conflict (When animals and humans clash (with John Cooper): forthcoming: Taylor & Francis).
I contribute to many publications, including the Times Literary Supplement, the Guardian, the Times, and the Literary Review.
There is a complete list of publications on this website.
My current academic interests relate mainly to the relevance of identity and personhood in decision-making, and to whether the notion of dignity can do any real work at the philosophical coal-face.
I read veterinary medicine and law at Cambridge, and am a qualified veterinary surgeon. I have a PhD in law/bioethics from the University of Cambridge.
I teach Medical Law and Ethics at the University of Oxford, and am a Visiting Professor and a member of the Oxford University Law Faculty. My Faculty page is here. I am a Senior Research Associate at the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, and a Research Associate at the Ethox Centre and the HeLEX Centre, all at the University of Oxford. I retain an active interest in veterinary medicine – particularly veterinary acupuncture and general wildlife and large animal medicine. I am a member of the Council of the Association of British Veterinary Acupuncturists.
I am a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, a Fellow of the Linnean Society and a Fellow of the International Society for Science and Religion.
I am married, with six children, and live in Oxford and a remote part of the southern Peloponnese.
I am represented by Jessica Woollard at David Higham Associates, 7th Floor, Waverley House, 7-12 Noel Street, London W1F 8GQ.
