Philosophy

Department of Philosophy
201 West Duke Building
Box 90743
Durham, NC 27708

p: 919 660.3050
f: 919 669.3060

Office Location: 203A West Duke Building
Office Phone: +1 919-660-2426
Fax:  +1 919-660-3060
Email Address:

Education:
PhD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1975
B.A., Magna cum laude, Columbia Uiversity, 1970

Specialties:

Political Philosophy
Philosophy of International Law
Social Moral Epistemology
Bioethics

Research Interests:

I had a most productive and enjoyable stay in Oxford for four months, ending in May of 2009, as a Visiting Leverhulme Professor and Fellow of St. Cross College.  My visit culminated in my giving the Oxford Uehiro Lectures in Practical Ethics.  My topic was the ethics of biomedical enhancement.  I am grateful for the warm welcome I received at Oxford and especially for the hospitality of Julian Savulescu, Director of the Uehiro Centre.  I am honored to have been appointed as a permanent Distinguished Research Associate of the Uehiro Centre.

 

Because Walter Sinnot-Armstrong was also a Visiting Leverhulme Professor at Oxford during that period, I got to know him and as a result I am all the more delighted that he will be joining us in the Duke Philosophy Department in January of 2010.

 

Oxford University Press will be publishing my Uehiro Lectures as a book, entitled Beyond Humanity? The Ethics of Biomedical Enhancement.  I also have two other books coming out with Oxford:  Justice and Health Care: Selected Essays and Human Rights, Legitimacy, and the Use of Force: Selected Essays.  The former is a collection of my best work on justice and health care over a 25 year period; the latter is a collection of my best work in ethics and international relations/international law since the publication in 2003 of my book Justice, Legitimacy, and Self-Determination.

 

I’ve had the good fortune to have the following new articles accepted for publication in the last month; they will be published at various times during the next year. 

(1)   “Moral Status and Enhancement,” Philosophy & Public Affairs (Fall 2009).

(2)   “The Egalitarianism of Human Rights,” Ethics

(3)   “Reciprocal Legitimacy,” Philosophy, Politics, & Economics

(4)   “Justice in the Diffusion of Innovation,” first author, with Anthony Cole and Robert O. Keohane, Journal of Political Philosophy.

 

I’m teaching my usual two course load this Fall.  One course is a Focus Program offering on ethical issues in genomics, focusing on the ethics of biomedical enhancements; the other is cross-listed in Philosophy and in Public Policy Studies and can be taken for credit in the new Human Rights Certificate Program; it is a basic course on human rights, focusing on controversies about the nature of human rights, the justifications for claims about the existence of human rights, and the legitimacy (or otherwise) of efforts to promote compliance with human rights norms.

Areas of Interest:

Political Philosophy, 
Philosophy of International Law,
Social Moral Epistemology
Bioethics

• PHIL 95FCS.01, Ethical issues in genomics

  West Duke 108A, TuTh 02:50 PM-04:05 PM

• POLSCI 162.01, Human rights-theory/prac

  Sanford 04, TuTh 01:15 PM-02:30 PM

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

• A. Buchanan. "Democracy and the Commitment to International Law." University of Georgia Journal of Comparative and International Law Spring 2006 (Spring, 2006). (Invited contribution to special issue on "The Limits of International Law" by Eric Posner and Jack Goldsmith)
• A. Buchanan. "Institutionalizing the Just War." Philosophy & Public Affairs (January, 2006).
• A. Buchanan. "Uncoupling Secession From Nationalism and Itnrastate Autonoly From Secession." Negotiating Self-Determination. Ed. Hurst Hannum Routledge, 2006
• A. Buchanan. "The Compatibility of Constitutional Democracy and the Supremacy of International Law." The Cambridge Handbook on International Law. Ed. John Armstrong Cambridge University Press, forthcoming
• A. Buchanan. ""Social Moral Epistemology and Ethics"."  Ed. Jeff McMahan and Nancy Davis forthcoming

Curriculum Vitae