Dr Phil Bielby

Dr Phil Bielby

Lecturer in Law

Faculty and Department

  • Faculty of Business, Law and Politics
  • The Law School

Qualifications

  • LLB (University of Hull)
  • PhD / DPhil (University of Sheffield)
  • PGCert (University of Sheffield)

Summary

Phil's first degree was in law and his postgraduate research was primarily concerned with bioethics. The University of Sheffield awarded him a PhD for this research in 2006. He subsequently published a monograph, Competence and Vulnerability in Biomedical Research (Springer, 2008), based on his doctoral work. Since then, Phil's research has been focused on questions of ethics, human rights and social justice in mental health theory, policy and law, most recently in public mental health ethics. This is also reflected in his teaching interests, as is his commitment to a socio-legal and critical approach to legal education.

Modules taught:

Medical Law and Ethics

Dissertation

Recent outputs

View more outputs

Book Chapter

Justifying mental health rights from a Gewirthian perspective

Bielby, P. (2016). Justifying mental health rights from a Gewirthian perspective. In P. Bauhn (Ed.), Gewirthian perspectives on human rights (174-190). Abingdon, Oxon: Taylor and Francis. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315625645

Research on Patients with Dementia

Bielby, P. (2014). Research on Patients with Dementia. In C. Foster, J. Herring, & I. Doron (Eds.), The Law and Ethics of Dementia. Hart Publishing

Journal Article

Beyond Surviving to Thriving: The Case for a 'Compassion towards Thriving' Approach in Public Mental Health Ethics

Bielby, P. (2021). Beyond Surviving to Thriving: The Case for a 'Compassion towards Thriving' Approach in Public Mental Health Ethics. Public Health Ethics, 14(3), 298-316. https://doi.org/10.1093/phe/phab023

Not 'us' and 'them': towards a normative legal theory of mental health vulnerability

Bielby, P. (2019). Not ‘us’ and ‘them’: towards a normative legal theory of mental health vulnerability. International journal of law in context, 15(1), 51-67. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1744552318000149

Experts, rights and precaution

Bielby, P., & Ward, T. (2012). Experts, rights and precaution. Web journal of current legal issues, 2012(5),

Research interests

Mental health and well-being

Public mental health ethics and law

Mental health and capacity ethics and law

Medical/healthcare ethics and law

Bioethics

Moral, political and legal theory

Applied ethics

Postgraduate supervision

Phil would be interested in supervising research students in the following areas:

•Ethical and legal issues surrounding public mental health as well as psychological and medical treatment for mental health problems / mental disorder.

•Concepts of vulnerability, compassion, care, autonomy and rights and their relationship to mental health and mental capacity law and policy.

•Ethical and legal issues surrounding decisional competence to consent to / refuse medical treatment and research by adults.

•The interface between normative legal philosophy / normative ethics and the above areas, especially the application of care ethics and Gewirth and Beyleveld and Brownsword’s ethical and legal thought.

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