Michael McDonald
Maurice Young Chair of Applied Ethics
The W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics
University of British Columbia
Michael McDonald was the founding Director
of the W. Maurice Young Centre for Applied Ethics (1990-2002). He
received an Honours BA in Philosophy from the University of Toronto
and an MA and PhD in Philosophy from the University of Pittsburgh.
From 1969 to 1990, he was a member of the Philosophy Department
at the University of Waterloo.
Specialization and Professional Interests
McDonald’s work is located at the intersection
of theory and practice in health care, business and professional
life, politics, and other aspects of everyday life. He has written
on such topics as the ethics of research involving human subjects,
cross-cultural ethics, the rights of communities, professional and
corporate responsibility, and the place of applied ethics in contemporary
society. He has played an important leadership role in the development
of a significant Canadian research capacity in applied ethics.
Current Research
Interests
McDonald is the Principal Investigator on
a CIHR-supported project, Towards the Ethical Governance of Canadian
Research Involving Humans: Principles, Policies, Practices and Outcomes.
This research is designed to provide an in depth ethical, historical
and qualitative study of Canadian arrangements for the use of human
subjects in health research.
McDonald is a co-investigator on the Genome Canada and Genome BC
project, Democracy, Ethics and Genomics headed by Michael
Burgess. McDonald is also a co-investigator on two projects in transplantation
ethics -- one on Living Anonymous Donation headed by David Landsberg
of the BC Transplant Society and the other on Ethnocultural beliefs
regarding organ donation headed by Anita Molzahn at the University
of Victoria.
Activities
His current research centres on the ethics
of research involving humans. For the Law Commission of Canada,
he and his research team just completed a report on the Governance
of Health Research Involving Human Subjects. He is also currently
involved in two research projects on ethical issues in transplantation,
one on ethnocultural attitudes towards organ donation and the other
on living anonymous kidney donation. As well, he was recently involved
in preparing reports on the integration of ethics into the new CIHR
and is a member of CIHR’s Working Group on Ethics.
McDonald serves on several ethics committees
in British Columbia and is the Canadian Bioethics Society representative
to the Canadian Council on Animal Care. As well, he was member the
Royal Society of Canada’s Expert Panel on the future of Health
Canada’s Non-Human Primate Centre.
Grants and Awards
Year(s), Granting Agency, $ per year (Principal
Investigator)
1991 SSHRC/UBC Business & Professional Ethics, Workshop $19,000
(McDonald)
1991-1994 SSHRC Applied Ethics Network $40,000 (McDonald)
1994-1997 SSHRC Applied Ethics Network $30,000 (McDonald)
1994-1997 SSHRC/Ford Cross Cultural Health Care Ethics $62,000 (Harold
Coward)
1997-1998 SSHRC Ethics of Ecological Restoration $5,000 (Eric Higgs)
1999-2001Kidney Foundation Ethnocultural beliefs regarding organ
donation $32,500 (Anita Molzahn)
1999 Law Commission Governance relations in medical research $63,500
(McDonald)
1999 SSHRC Bioethics and Health Law $39,924 (Susan Sherwin)
1999 SSHRC Ethics and Society and Health $40,000 (Storch, McDonald,
Anderson)
Fujisawa and Hoffman LaRoche Who is the LAD? Understanding the Living
Anonymous Donor $310,000 1999-2001 (David Landsberg)
2000 CIHR Training Institute Seed Grant $5,000 (McDonald)
CIHR Towards the Ethical Governance of Canadian Research Involving
Humans: Principles, 2002-2004 Policies, Practices and Outcomes $58,970
(McDonald)
2002-2008 CIHR Training Program in Health Ethics Research &
Policy $300,000 (McDonald)
Teaching
McDonald is the Program Director of the
Ethics of Health Research and Policy Training Program, joint UBC-Dalhousie
doctoral and post-doctoral training program. The program’s
objective is to train the leaders of the next generation of scholars
in bioethics in Canada. The program is made possible by support
from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, the Michael Smith
Health Research Foundation and the Nova Scotia Health Research Foundation.
In 2003-2004, McDonald will be teaching the following courses:
* Applied Ethics Work in Progress (INDS 502W, Terms 1 & 2)
* Ethical and Philosophical Issues in Community-Based Research (INDS
581, Term 1)
* Ethics of Research Involving Humans (INDS 502R, Term 2)
Professional Service
Some of McDonald’s professional service
includes serving as Co-Chair of the Standing Committee on Ethics
for the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR). Previously,
McDonald served as a member and Deputy-Chair of the Tri-Council
Working Group on Ethics – the Working Group that prepared the
document that eventually became the official policy of the three
federal research councils for the ethical conduct of research involving
humans. He is a member of the Canadian Council on Animal Care. McDonald
has also served as President of the Canadian Philosophical Association,
English-Language Editor of the Canadian philosophical journal Dialogue,
and President of the Canadian Section of the International Association
for Philosophy of Law and Social Philosophy. He has also served
as ethics consultant to a variety of groups including the Certified
General Accountants of Canada and the Aboriginal Research Coalition
of Ontario.
Recent Publications
Ethical issues in the treatment of humans
subjects involved in health research are addressed by McDonald in
a series of recent publications. In The Governance of Health Research
Involving Human Subjects, McDonald and his co-authors provide the
first in-depth description and analysis of Canadian public and private
sector oversight of health research involving human subjects. This
study was prepared for the Law Commission of Canada, Ottawa and
published in October 2000. This study is available in either English
or French and copies can be obtained directly from the Commission.
In the sections of the study authored by McDonald (Ethics and Governance),
he provides in Section A an overview of the project as well as its
scope and limitations. In Section B, he offers a conceptual analysis
of ethics in relation to governance, a description of the current
governance processes and an account of the factors shaping the context
of Canadian governance for the area. In the final section of the
study (Section F) McDonald presents five major conclusions and recommendations
essential to the reform of Canadian governance for health research
involving human subjects.
In The Governance of Health Research Involving Human Subjects: Reflections
on Ethical Policy for Scientific Research (Transactions Royal Society
of Canada Special Issue: Science and Ethics, Series VI, Volume XI,
pp. 49-68), McDonald provides an overview of the work done by his
research team for the Law Commission of Canada and suggests that
political divisions over appropriate governance have been exacerbated
by a lack of good ethical analysis and qualitative research. In
Canadian Governance of Health Research Involving Human Subjects:
Is Anybody Minding the Store? (Health Law Journal, Vol.9, 2001,
1-21), McDonald strongly criticizes the current state of inaction
with respect to Canadian protection for human subjects and argues
for an evidence-based approach to the protection of research subjects.
In transplantation ethics, McDonald has published work as member
of interdisciplinary team from the British Columbia Transplant Society
on living anonymous donation (LAD) – the donation of a kidney
by a donor to a "stranger" someone who is unrelated biologically
or emotionally. In The living anonymous kidney donor: Lunatic or
saint? (American Journal of Transplantation, in press), evidence
is offered that a significant number of potential LADs are likely
to be psychologically stable altruistic donors. Earlier work on
public receptivity to LAD is reported in Living Anonymous Kidney
Donation: What Does the Public Think? Transplantation (in press,
June 2001).
Cross-cultural dimensions of the concept of health and their relevance
to health care are tracked by McDonald in Health, Health Care and
Culture: Diverse Meanings, Shared Agendas which is a chapter in
A Cross-Cultural Dialogue on Health Care Ethics (H. Coward and P.
Ratanakul (Eds.) Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1998).
McDonald’s work in business and professional ethics includes
publications on accounting ethics, most notably the Ethics Reading
Handbook which is used by the Certified General Accountants of Canada
as a basic part of their distance education program for CGA status.
He has also written on ethics for foresters: First Principles for
Professional Foresters. Peter C. List, Ed. Environmental Ethics
and Forestry: A Reader (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2000;
pp.128-144).
McDonald’s earlier work in political philosophy is represented
by a variety of publications. The paper Aboriginal Rights has been
reprinted in anthologies by Cragg -- Contemporary Moral Issues (McGraw
Hill Ryerson) and by Soifer -- Ethical Issues Perspectives for Canadians
(Broadview Press). The argument that ends justifying means in politics
is discussed and rejected by McDonald in Hands: Clean and Tied,
Dirty and Bloody which is published in Cruelty and Deception: The
Controversy Over Dirty Hands In Politics, David Shugarman and Paul
Rynard, Eds. Broadview Press, 1999.
Other Publications
• Henderson, A. J. Z., Landolt, M.
A., McDonald, M. F., Landsberg, D. N., Barrable, W. M., Soos, J.
G., Gourlay, W., Allison, C. J. (in press). The living anonymous
kidney donor: Lunatic or saint? American Journal of Transplantation.
• Chris Macdonald, Michael McDonald, and Wayne Norman "Charitable
Conflicts of Interest," Journal of Business Ethics 39 (Nos.
1-2) 67-74.
• “Canadian Governance of Health Research Involving Human
Subjects: Is Anybody Minding the Store?” Health Law Journal,
Vol.9, 2001, 1-21.
• The Governance of Health Research Involving Human Subjects.
Law Commission of Canada, Ottawa, October 2000 (online). Available
in either English or French, xxiv + 363 pages.
• Landolt, M.A., Henderson, A.J.Z., Barrable, W.M., Greenwood,
S.D., McDonald, M.F., Soos, J.G., Landsberg, D.N. “Living Anonymous
Kidney Donation: What Does the Public Think?” Transplantation.
(In press, June 2001).
• “The Governance of Health Research Involving Human Subjects:
Reflections on Ethical Policy for Scientific Research”, Transactions
Royal Society of Canada Special Issue: Science and Ethics, Series
VI, Volume XI, pp. 49-68.
• "First Principles for Professional Foresters.”
“First Principles for Professional Foresters”. Peter C.
List, Ed. Environmental Ethics and Forestry: A Reader, Philadelphia:
Temple University Press, 2000; pp.128-144.
• "Hands: Clean and Tied, Dirty and Bloody", Cruelty
and Deception: The Controversy Over Dirty Hands In Politics, David
Shugarman and Paul Rynard, Eds. Broadview Press, 1999.
• “Health, Health Care and Culture: Diverse Meanings,
Shared Agendas", A Cross-Cultural Dialogue on Health Care Ethics,
Eds. H. Coward and P. Ratanakul, Wilfrid Laurier University Press.
1999, pp. 92-112.
• "Business Ethics in Canada: Integration and Interdisciplinarity",
Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 16 (6), April 1997, pp. 635-43
• "Prescriptions from Religious and Secular Ethics for
Breaking the Impoverishment/Environmental Degradation Cycle",
Population, Consumption, and the Environment: Religious and Secular
Perspectives. H. Coward, rd. State University of New York Press,
1995, pp. 195-216
• “An Inquiry Into the Ethics of Retroactive Environmental
Legislation: the Case of British Columbia's Bill 26", University
of B.C. Law Review, 29, 1995, pp. 63-86
• Ethics Readings Handbook, Certified General Accountants of
Canada, Vancouver, 1995, 1997 (24,000 CGA students in Canada, Asia
and the Caribbean are using this text and anthology.)
• "Opportunities for Research in Business and Professional
Ethics", Journal of Business Ethics, 11: 41 55, 1992
• "Liberalism, Community, and Culture", University
of Toronto Law Journal, 42, 1992, pp. 113 131
• “Should Communities Have Rights? Reflections on Liberal
Individualism", Human Rights in Cross- Cultural Perspectives,
A.A. An-Na'im (Ed), University of Pennsylvania Press, Pennsylvania
Studies in Human Rights, Philadelphia, 1992, pp 133-161; and in
Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, IV (2), July 1991
• "Questions about Collective Rights", Language and
the State: The Law and Politics of Identity, ed. David Schniederman,
Montreal, Les editions Yvon Blais, 1991, pp. 3-25
• Michael McDonald (Principal Investigator), Marie Helene Parizeau
(Senior Researcher), Daryl Pullman (Research Assistant), Towards
a Canadian Research Strategy for Applied Ethics: Report for the
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, published by the
Canadian Federation for the Humanities, 151 Slater Street, Suite
404, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5H3 ISBN 0 920031 07 02, November 1988.
Vers une strategie canadienne de recherche en éthique appliquée,
French edition of report, April 1993
• "Respect for Individuals Versus Respect for Groups:
Public Aid for Confessional Schools in the United States and Canada",
Philosophical Dimensions of the Constitution, Diane Meyers and Kenneth
Kipnis, editors, Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1988, pp. 180
195
• "Indian Status: Colonialism or Sexism", Canadian
Community Law Journal, 1986, pp. 23 48
• "Justice in Hard Times", Social Justice, Bowling
Green Studies in Applied Philosophy, Bowling Green, 1982, pp. 34
43. Reprinted in Contemporary Moral Issues, W. Cragg, ed., McGraw-Hill
Ryerson, 1st edition 1983, 2nd edition 1987, 3rd edition 1992, pp.
560-70
• "Aboriginal Rights", Contemporary Issues in Political
Philosophy, Eds. W.R. Shea and J. King Farlow, New York, 1976, pp.
27 48. Reprinted in Contemporary Moral Issues, ed. W. Cragg, McGraw
Hill Ryerson, first edition 1983, second edition 1987, third edition
1991, pp. 269-286 and in Ethical Issues Perspectives for Canadians,
ed. E. Soifer, Broadview Press, Peterborough, Ont., first edition
1992, second edition 1997, pp. 598-613
