Research
My interests in applied ethics are united by three complementary notions: personhood, autonomy, and consent. In clinical ethics, I am interested in the counter-intuitive ways in which autonomy can be promoted (e.g. in special circumstances, this might require withholding information at the patient's request). In research ethics, I am interested in the motivations that patients have for enrolling in trials (what is the ethical difference between enrolling out of hope or fear, or for enrolling out of therapeutic self-interest or altruistic reasons?). In sexual ethics, I am interested in critiquing the claim that consent is sufficient for ethically permissible sexual engagement, and am developing a project that contrasts the notion of consent as it is deployed in medical domains versus sexual domains. I am currently writing a series of articles that analyze how the business of medicine (e.g. medical billing, cost of procedures, and the threat of medical debt) impacts the agency of patients and medical practitioners alike.
My approach to bioethics is also greatly influenced by disability studies; I am convinced that debates in disability studies are relevant in the philosophy of medicine broadly. That is, it is important to question whether diseases and disorders are appropriately understood in normatively bad terms, and when they are in fact better understood as value-neutral attributes that (due to contingent societal structures) impact individuals negatively. It is also the case that inclusion protocols in biomedical research sometimes deny individuals with disabilities the "dignity of risk" (i.e. denying a recognition of autonomy such that one can willingly undertake risky decisions), a topic that is relevant to my interests in both disability studies and research ethics.
I am continuing my work on placebos, an interest that began with my doctoral thesis. Placebos have captured popular and medical imagination. They seem mysterious and their effects, at times, seem impossible. They also raise distinctive and under-appreciated metaphysical, epistemological and ethical questions. My dissertation advanced a positive proposal that captures core characteristics all placebos share. I argue that placebos have distinctive epistemic characteristics, and can be distinguished from both ordinary encouragement (e.g. positive feedback improving our performance at a task) and standard medical treatment (e.g. taking antibiotics for an infection). Theories of placebo are both medically and philosophically important. Placebo phenomena are often taken to be explanandum for the metaphysics of mind, and harnessing placebo effects for therapeutic benefit requires a clear understanding of their causal drivers.
I am deeply committed to feminist philosophy, broadly construed. I am developing a project at the intersection of feminist philosophy and the philosophy of race regarding self-love under conditions of oppression and how that relates to social justice.
Publications:
“Patient Autonomy and Withholding Information” (2023) Bioethics , 37(3), 256-264
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/bioe.13130
https://philpapers.org/rec/REEPAA-4
“The Social Epistemology of Clinical Placebos” (forthcoming) Journal of Medicine and Philosophy
https://philpapers.org/rec/REETSE-3
"Sexual Agency and Sexual Wrongs: A Dilemma for Consent Theory" (forthcoming) Philosophers' Imprint
co-authored with Jonathan Ichikawa)
https://philpapers.org/rec/REESAA-6
Book Review (Dec 2021) The Journal of Philosophy of Disability
Review of: Disability, Health, Law and Bioethics. Edited by Cohen, Shachar, Silvers, and Stein. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
https://www.pdcnet.org/jpd/content/jpd_2021_0001_0231_0235
Works in Progress
"The 'Expectation' Does Not Explain Placebo Effects" (R&R)
"Self-Love and Social Justice" (draft available)
"Medical Billing Vitiates Consent" (draft available)