Melissa Rees, PhD

PhD Philosophy, University of Toronto (2022)

M.A. Philosophy, Columbia University (2015)

B.A. Gender & Women's Studies and Rhetoric - University of California at Berkeley (2013)

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I work in the philosophy of medicine and bioethics, as well as feminist philosophy and sexual ethics. My ethical interests are centered on autonomy and consent in both medical and sexual contexts. My approach to the philosophy of medicine is guided by the principle that social ontology and social epistemology give us insight into important categories relevant to medicine, e.g. placebo, disability, race. I am also interested in personhood, especially as concerns our self-regarding attitudes and the phenomenology of what it is to be the very person that I am.

The title of my dissertation was "Placebos: Their Nature and Ethical Implications." I there presented an account of placebos wherein they are partially constituted by the social context of administration and are held to a distinctive norm. I defended my dissertation in October of 2022.