Research

Research Overview

I work primarily in clinical and biomedical ethics, with a particular focus on informed consent and decisional capacity. I ask both philosophical questions about the nature of consent and capacity – e.g., what does it mean to be capacitated? what is the normative significance of informed consent? how ought capacity be adjudicated, and what gives someone the authority to make a capacity determination? – and practical questions about how consent and capacity factor in to clinical care – e.g., are certain populations disproportionately assumed to lack capacity? when should we accept incapacitated decision-making as decisive in treatment? who decides when there is legitimate disagreement about a patient’s capacity? In this way, I hope to have my philosophical research inform my clinical practice, and vice versa.

I am also interested in epistemic injustice in medical care, particularly with respect to incapacitated, minoritized, or pain-experiencing patients. All of these groups, in various ways, are seen as reporting epistemically-suspect testimony in healthcare contexts, while themselves having generally decreased trust in the medical establishment. I aim to understand these dynamics with the broader aim of helping to rectify any epistemic or other harms that result from them. Additionally, I have papers currently in progress regarding capacity assessments for surrogate decision-makers, psychiatric ethics, and involuntary treatment for anorexia nervosa (among others).