Colin Farrelly

I am Professor and Queen’s National Scholar in the Department of Political Studies at Queen’s University.

This site contains information about my academic career and research interests.

My CV is available here.   PubMed entries here.

National Post article on “positive biology” here, and CBC radio interview here.  Open access JRSM Essay here.  Interview on longevity science here.

Central question which  preoccupies most of my research and life:   How should we live?

My past and current research focuses on more specific topics that arise from this general question, including:

1. How can we best improve human health in an aging world?
2. Why play (and what is play)?
3. What is political theory? And why is it important for us to do political theory?
4. Why is there patriarchy?
5. How and why should we punish?

If you are looking for my blog “In Search of Enlightenment” please click here.

List of publications is here, and detailed research statement is here.  And some details about what I teach are here.

I also have a multimedia page here, which has some video presentations of published papers and works in progress.  I hope you find something of interest!

Bio

I am a political theorist and philosopher and received my PhD from the University of Bristol in England in 1999.  I have published 4 books (two edited volumes and two single-authored books) and numerous articles in a variety of different journals.  My research interests are interdisciplinary and include normative issues in politics, philosophy, law, science and medicine.  My publications have appeared in journals such as Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, Political Studies, British Medical Journal, Journals of Gerontology, QJM: An International Journal of Medicine, Biogerontology, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, American Journal of Bioethics, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Nature’s EMBO Reports, University of Toronto Law Journal, Bioethics, Public Health Ethics, Hypatia, Political Studies Review, Journal of Medical Licensure and Discipline, Rejuvenation Research and Philosophy of the Social Sciences.

Before coming to Queen’s University in 2008 I was Associate Professor of Political Science (Cross-Appointed with Philosophy) at Waterloo University for 5 years.  I also spent a year as a Research Fellow in the Dept of Politics and International Relations at Oxford University and as a Visitor in Oxford’s Program on the Ethics of the New Biosciences.

In the more distant past, I held full-time academic appointments in the Dept of Government at Manchester University, the Dept of Political Science and International Studies at Birmingham University and the Dept of Philosophy at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland.

The bridge of life: frontispiece to Pearson (1897).

Books

(1)  An Introduction to Contemporary Political Theory (London: Sage Publications, 2004).

(2)  Contemporary Political Theory: A Reader (London: Sage Publications, 2004).

(3)  Justice, Democracy and Reasonable Agreement (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2007)

(4)  Virtue Jurisprudence (co-edited with Lawrence Solum) (Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008 )

Publications(by discipline)

POLITICAL SCIENCE

● “Play and Politics” (forthcoming) Journal of Political Science Education

●“Virtue Epistemology and the “Epistemic Fitness” of Democracy” Political Studies Review  10(1), 2012, pp. 7-22.

●“Justice in Ideal Theory: A Refutation”  Political Studies Volume 55, 2007, pp. 844–864.

● “Dualism, Incentives and the Demands of Rawlsian Justice” Canadian Journal of Political Science, Vol. 38(3), Sept. 2005, pp. 675-95.

● “Making Deliberative Democracy a More Practical Political Ideal” European Journal of Political Theory, Vol. 4(2), 2005, pp. 200-208.

● “Taxation and Distributive Justice” Political Studies Review, Vol. 2, 2004, pp. 185-197.

● “Incentives and the Natural Duties of Justice”, Politics, Vol. 20(1), 2000, pp. 19-24.

● “Does Rawls Support the Procedural Republic?” Politics, Vol. 19, No. 1, February 1999, pp. 29-35.

● “Neutrality, Toleration and Reasonable Agreement” in D. Castiglioni and C. Mackinnon, eds.,Toleration, Neutrality and Democracy (Amsterdam: Kluwer, 2003).

● “Deliberative Democracy and Nanotechnology” Nanoethics: Examining the Societal Impact of Nanotechnology (NJ:  John Wiley and Sons Inc.) edited by Fritz Allhoff, Patrick Lin, James Moor and John Weckert.

MEDICINE

● “Why the NIH Should Create an Institute of Positive Biology” Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine (forthcoming)

● “Towards a More Inclusive Vision of the Medical Sciences” QJM: An International Journal of Medicine 102 (2009): 579-582.

● “Has the Time Come to Take on Time Itself?” British Medical Journal, Vol. 337, 2008, pp. 147-48.

● “Preparing for Our Enhanced Future” Journal of Medical Licensure and Discipline Vol 93(2), 2007, pp. 12-18.

SCIENCE

● “Biogerontology and the Intellectual Virtues”  Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences   67(7), 2012. pp. 734-6.

● “”Positive Biology” as a New Paradigm for the Medical Sciences” Nature’s EMBO Reports 13, 2012, pp. 186 – 188

●  “Global Aging, Well-Ordered Science and Prospection” Rejuvenation Research 13(5) (2010):607-12.

● “Framing the Inborn Aging Process and Longevity Science” Biogerontology 11(3) (2010): 377-85.

●  “Why Aging Research?”Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1197 (2010): 1–8.

●  “A Tale of Two Strategies:  The Moral Imperative to Tackle Ageing” Nature’s EMBO Reports, Vol. 9(7), 2008, pp. 592-95. [PDF available for free via PubMed]

● “Sufficiency, Justice and the Pursuit of Health- Extension” Rejuvenation Research Vol. 10(4), 2007, pp. 513-20.

● “Genes and Distributive Justice” Nature Encyclopedia of the Human Genome 2003.

BIOETHICS

● “Normative Theorising about Genetics” (forthcoming) Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics

● “Equality and the Duty to Retard Human Aging” Bioethics 24(8) (2010): 384-94.

● “Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis, Reproductive Freedom, and Deliberative Democracy” Journal of Medicine and Philosophy 34(2) (2009):135-154.

● “Aging Research, Priorities and Aggregation” Public Health Ethics , Vol. 1(3), 2008, pp. 258-67.

● “3 Wishes” Journal of Evolution and Technology, Vol. 20(1), 2008, pp. 23-28.

●  “The Case for Re-thinking Incest Laws” Journal of Medical Ethics Vol. 34:e2, 2008, pp. 1-2.

●“Genetic Justice Must Track Genetic Complexity” Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, Vol. 17(1), 2008, pp. 45-53.

● “Virtue Ethics and Prenatal Genetic Enhancement” Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology Vol. 1(1), 2007, pp. 1-13.

● “Justice in the Genetically Transformed Society” Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, Vol. 15(1), 2005, pp. 91-99.

● “Genes and Equality” Journal of Medical Ethics, Vol. 30(4), 2004, pp. 587-592.

● “The Genetic Difference Principle” American Journal of Bioethics, Vol. 4(2), 2004, W21-28.

PHILOSOPHY

● “Empirical Ethics and the Duty to Extend the Biological Warranty Period” (forthcoming) Social Philosophy and Policy

● “Patriarchy and Historical Materialism” Hypatia 26(1), 2011, pp. pages 1–21

●“Mind the Gap: Beneficence and Senescence” Public Affairs Quarterly Vol. 24(2), 2010, pp. 115-130.

● “Gene Patents and Justice” Journal of Value Inquiry Vol. 41 (2-4), 2007, pp. 147-163.

● “Historical Materialism and Supervenience” Philosophy of the Social Sciences, Vol. 35(4), 2005, pp. 420-446.

● “A Challenge to Brink’s Metaphysical Egoism” Res Publica: A Journal of Legal and Social Philosophy, Vol. 9, No. 3, 2003, pp. 243-256.

● “Genetic Intervention and the New Frontiers of Justice” Canadian Philosophical Review XLI, 2002, pp. 139-154.

● “Justice and a Citizens’ Basic Income”, Journal of Applied Philosophy 16(3), 1999, pp. 283-296.

LAW

●  “The Institutional Theory of Legal Interpretation” University of Toronto Law Journal, Vol. 58(2), 2008, pp. 217-32.

● “Civic Liberalism and the ‘Dialogical Model’ of Judicial Review” Law and Philosophy Vol. 25(5), 2006, pp. 489-532.  Reprinted in edited volume Virtue Jurisprudence.

● “The Social Character of Freedom of Expression” Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence 14(2), 2001, pp. 261-71.

● “Public Reason, Neutrality and Civic Virtue” Ratio Juris: An International Journal of Jurisprudence and Philosophy of Law, 12(1), 1999, pp. 11-25.

I regularly teach POLS 250 An Introduction to Political Theory and POLS 402/857 Science and Justice.  Here are the trailers for those two courses:

POLS 250 (Trailer)

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POLS 250 (part 2)

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POLS 250 Conclusion

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POLS 402 trailer version 2

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In POLS 250, which is a history of political thought course from Plato to Marx, I engage in some “role playing” and have an inclass debate between the conservative Edmund Burke and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  I ask the students to come up with questions for Burke, and then I attempt to answer those questions as a 21st century Burkean conservative might answer them.  Here is a video from the course in which Burke responds to 3 questions from students in the class:

burke response video

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Research Statement

More than 2000 years ago Aristotle described politics as a normative practical science. He believed that politics was the most authoritative of all the sciences (prescribing which sciences ought to be studied) because the central concern of politics is the good of humans. This ancient conception of the discipline inspires my  current research which integrates ethics and political philosophy with the empirical findings of evolutionary biology, genetics and psychology. Aspiring to help bridge the gap between the biological sciences and political theory, I am interested in how our species’ evolutionary history impacts (for better and worse) our ability to flourish, as both individuals and collectively as societies. Three general (related) topics encapsulate my current research:

(1) Our susceptibility to late-life morbidity and mortality.

The leading cause of disease and death in the world today is evolutionary neglect. Because the force of natural selection does not apply to the post-reproductive period of the human lifespan, aged persons are highly susceptible to the chronic diseases of aging, like cancer, heart disease and stroke. In an aging world perhaps no other field of scientific research is as important to the health prospects of today’s populations as biogerontology. This science might enable us to eventually modify the biological clocks we have inherited from our Darwinian past, thus permitting humans to enjoy more years of disease-free life. My  research focuses on the social and political obstacles that impede aging research and the aspiration to decelerate the rate of aging.

(2) Our potential for happiness.

Political scientists have long asked the question: “Why vote?” But this question presupposes a more fundamental question: “Why do anything?” This latter question requires us to consider what kind of animal humans are. The ultimate (or evolutionary) causes of human behaviour have typically been ignored by political scientists who invoke rational choice theory or focus on the proximate causes of political behaviour. My interest in these topics seeks to integrate political theory with the recent findings of evolutionary biology and positive psychology. Aristotle argued that we are a “political” animal; and Socrates famously claimed that “the unexamined life is not worth living”. These sage insights from Ancient Greece actually possess a great deal of empirical plausibility. And my current research explores the similarities between love, play and politics, the goal of which is to help bring to the fore the different range of activities, relationships, institutions, habits and dispositions that a good society ought to cultivate and celebrate if it is to flourish in the twenty-first century.

(3) Ideal and Nonideal theory. 

What is political theory? What are the evaluative criteria by which we judge success or failure in the field? And why is it important for us to do political theory? My interest in these methodological issues informs both my teaching and research. I am interested in how political theory can both enhance and hinder our capacity for practical deliberation. As the instructor of a required, full-year course on the history of political thought (POLS 250), I believe it is imperative that a student of politics study how different theorists have attempted to link the “realm of ideas” to the “realm of governing human affairs”. Theory can help a student re-experience the past (via a survey of the history of ideas) as well as pre-experience the future by simulating different potential collective futures. The latter is a central focus of my seminar “Science and Justice”, which aspires to develop the diverse skills needed to address the ethical and social challenges posed by advances in the biomedical sciences.