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142Institutionalized Intolerance of ADHD: Sources and ConsequencesHypatia 25 (3). 2010.Diagnosable individuals, caregivers, and clinicians typically embrace a biological conception of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), finding that medical treatment is beneficial. Scientists study ADHD phenomenology, interventions to ease symptoms, and underlying mechanisms, often with an aim of helping diagnosed people. Yet current understanding of ADHD, jointly influenced by science and society, has an unintended downside. Scientific and social influences have embedded negative val…Read more
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98Embedding values: how science and society jointly valence a concept—the case of ADHDStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (1): 21-31. 2010.Many successful sciences both serve and shape human ends. Conversely, the societies in which these sciences are practiced support the research and provide interpretive context. These mutual influences may result in a positive feedback loop that reinforces constitutive and contextual values, embedding them in scientific concepts: the ADHD concept is a case in point. In an ongoing process, social considerations fuel investigational choices and contexts for evaluating data. Scientific study forward…Read more
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89How terrorism is wrong: Morality and political violence. By Virginia heldHypatia 27 (1): 219-222. 2012.
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81Beyond Service LearningTeaching Philosophy 34 (3): 219-240. 2011.In this essay, we describe a form of civic engagement for ethics classes in which students identify a community problem and devise a project to address that need. Like traditional service learning, our civic engagement project improves critical thinking and expressive philosophical skills. It is especially effective in meeting pedagogical goals of engaging and expanding student agency and independence while connecting class materials with individual students’ interests. The project can be adapte…Read more
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49ADHD drugs: Values that drive the debates and decisions (review)Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy 10 (2): 129-140. 2007.Use of medication for treatment of ADHD (or its historical precursors) has been debated for more than forty years. Reasons for the ongoing differences of opinion are analyzed by exploring some of the arguments for and against considering ADHD a mental disorder. Relative to two important DSM criteria — that a mental disorder causes some sort of harm to the individual and that a mental disorder is the manifestation of a dysfunction in the individual — ADHD’s classification as a mental disorder is …Read more
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31Engaged Philosophy: Showcasing Philosophers-Activists Working with the Media, Community Groups, Political Groups, Prisons, and StudentsEssays in Philosophy 21 (1): 109-119. 2020.By drawing on a selection of interviews from the website Engaged Philosophy, this paper highlights the work of philosopher-activists within their classrooms and communities. These philosophers have stepped out of the ivory towers and work directly with media, community and political groups, people in prison; or they encourage their students to engage in activist projects. The variety of approaches presented here shows the many ways philosophically inspired activism can give voice to those who ar…Read more
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17‘Effective’ at What? On Effective Intervention in Serious Mental IllnessHealth Care Analysis 27 (4): 289-308. 2019.The term “effective,” on its own, is honorific but vague. Interventions against serious mental illness may be “effective” at goals as diverse as reducing “apparent sadness” or providing housing. Underexamined use of “effective” and other success terms often obfuscates differences and incompatibilities in interventions, degrees of effectiveness, key omissions in effectiveness standards, and values involved in determining what counts as “effective.” Yet vague use of such success terms is common in…Read more
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16Wild politics: feminism, globalisation, bio/diversitySpinifex. 2002.The personal and the political, the local and the global—divergent perspectives are synthesized in this visionary examination of globalization and how it affects individual lives. Personal stories of urban and rural living reveal the many varieties of experience and how Western culture has created both immense wealth and poverty. Discussions of primary production, neoclassical economics, and international trade agreements accompany writing about nature and how rural life is deeply connected to l…Read more
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16Embedding values: how science and society jointly valence a concept—the case of ADHDStudies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences 41 (1): 21-31. 2010.
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6Accidental Intolerance: How We Stigmatize Adhd and How We Can StopOxford University Press. 2013.Accidental Intolerance shows how medicine, science, and society jointly — though not intentionally-stigmatize ADHD — diagnosed people, while offering them few options. It also explores ways we can change our concepts and practices to improve factual understanding of ADHD, open alternatives to affected people, and reduce intolerance.