Dr. Nicholas Drake

I recently completed my PhD in Philosophy at the Australian National University and have MAs in philosophy from Victoria University of Wellington and Washington University in St. Louis. I go by the name "Nicky," and my Māori friends and family call me "Nīkora." Having completed my doctoral research, I'm excited about professional opportunities in academia, advocacy, public policy, and the NGO sector. 

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I specialize in applied social and political philosophy, especially in the areas of wellbeing, public policy, and disability. My dissertation is about government approaches to measuring and promoting wellbeing (especially the systems of measuring wellbeing often called “wellbeing frameworks”). Wellbeing frameworks have the potential to improve our policy making processes by moving our national standards of economic and social progress away from consumption and growth and towards people's wellbeing. However, they face significant challenges: they are in danger of being politically illegitimate, ignoring the wellbeing of future generations, and excluding the views of wellbeing of important parts of the population. My dissertation finds ways for wellbeing frameworks to accord with what populations themselves value for their wellbeing, to function well in societies with a range of views of wellbeing, especially those of Indigenous peoples, and to work well to promote the wellbeing of future generations.

Before my PhD I specialized in ethics and metaethics, and published on moral bioenhancement, Mill's metaethics, utilitarianism, and metaethics and love. I’ve now begun publishing my doctoral research, and my paper “An Account of Wellbeing for Public Policy” is forthcoming in the journal Ergo. 

 

Before beginning university I studied and taught classical piano, founded and ran Te Whiti-o-Rongomai House, which provided accommodation for homeless people, and for four years lived a subsistence lifestyle in a hut in the bush in Hokianga, New Zealand, as part of a community that offered accommodation and support to people in need. While in Hokianga I gained certificates in Māori studies and in horticulture at the small local branch of a technical institute.

 

For Māori, where you and your people are from is more important than what you do for a living. On my mother's side, my family is from the West Coast of the South Island of New Zealand, and before that from England and Ireland. On my father's side, my family is of the Māori tribe Ngāi Tahu and the subtribe Kāti Kuri, of Kaikōura on the East Coast of the South Island, and from England and Ireland. The photos on this website are of Kaikōura . It's a very good place to walk in the mountains or go to sea to see whales, dolphins, albatrosses, seals, and penguins.

I am very lucky to be married to a wonderful woman called Hannah Simpson, from Wellington, New Zealand. I like to go to wild places when I can, and have done quite a lot of alpine trekking. I very much like seeing and meeting wild animals. The best animals are penguins.