•  3
    The Ethics of Stem Cell-Based Embryo-Like Structures
    with W. J. Dondorp, A. L. Bredenoord, and G. M. W. R. de Wert
    Journal of Bioethical Inquiry 1-30. forthcoming.
    In order to study early human development while avoiding the burdens associated with human embryo research, scientists are redirecting their efforts towards so-called human embryo-like structures (hELS). hELS are created from clusters of human pluripotent stem cells and seem capable of mimicking early human development with increasing accuracy. Notwithstanding, hELS research finds itself at the intersection of historically controversial fields, and the expectation that it might be received as si…Read more
  •  1
    Towards a Philosophical Approach to Psychiatry (review)
    British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Review of Books 2021. 2021.
    The history of psychiatry does not inspire confidence, even among psychiatrists, and there has always been a cottage industry in medicine and psychology that wrestles with various conceptual problems around mental illness. It’s arguable that philosophers of science have not paid enough attention to this literature. Even if you aren’t interested in psychiatry, you might profit from the debates in psychometrics on the measurement of mental constructs, or look at the arguments over causation, reduc…Read more
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    Specific Phobia Is an Ideal Psychiatric Kind
    Philosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 27 (3): 299-315. 2020.
    The causes and underlying natures of common mental disorders are, for the most part, quite mysterious. Our best taxonomies acknowledge this poverty of causal knowledge about minds, brains, society, and whatever else, to instead classify psychopathology based on clusters of detectable signs and symptoms: what it is to be, say, depressed, is simply to exhibit the minimum number of typical features for the right amount of time. Nothing in this approach references what causes and maintains a charact…Read more