David Archard is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Queen’s University Belfast, having previously taught at the Universities of Ulster, St Andrews and Lancaster. He has published extensively in applied ethics, political philosophy, and philosophy of law, especially on the topics of children, the family, sexual consent, and the public role of philosophy. His book Children. Rights and Childhood, now in its 3rd edition, was the first book philosophically to analyze the moral and political status of children.

He has been Honorary Chair of the Society for Applied Philosophy and is its Vice-President. For twelve years he was a Member of the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority, and latterly its Deputy Chair. He was Chair of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the United Kingdom’s de facto national ethics committee (2016-2023), is Chair of the Ethics Advisory Group of the ‘Every Story Matters’ exercise of the UK’s COVID Public Inquiry, and a Member of the Clinical Ethics Committee of Great Ormond Street Hospital.

Outside his work as a philosopher he travels with Bernarde in their campervan to Europe, and all places Irish.

He is a bad wood turner, and a member of the local Ormeau Petanque club