Richard H Dees

University of Rochester | UR · Department of Philosophy

The language of leverage is pervasive. Indeed, it is so pervasive that we can cease to notice when it is used. So, just to illustrate the almost-unconscious use we make of leverage in everyday life, here are just a few samples from my own life in one random week: (1) A student in a seminar describes the work of Boston Healthcare for the Homeless as...

A live organ donor needs to be informed carefully about the risks and benefits of her donation for both herself and her recipient, but a key ethical question is how much the donor is allowed to know about the recipient. To decide this question, we must first decide whether, out of respect for autonomy, the donor should decide how much she wants to...

The experience of newborn screening for Krabbe disease in New York State demonstrates the ethical problems that arise when screening programs are expanded in the absence of true understanding of the diseases involved. In its 5 years of testing and millions of dollars in costs, there have been very few benefits, and the testing has uncovered potenti...

1. For Hume's alleged conservatism, see Sheldon Wolin, "Hume and Conservatism," American Political Science Review 48 (1954): 999-1016; for his alleged contractarianism, see David Gauthier, "David Hume, Contractarian," Philosophical Review 88 (1979): 3-38; for his alleged utilitarianism, see with some qualification, Frederick Whelan, Order and Artif...

The idea of enhancing our mental functions through medical means makes many people uncomfortable. People have a vague feeling that altering our brains tinkers with the core of our personalities and the core of ourselves. It changes who we are, and doing so seems wrong, even if the exact reasons for the unease are difficult to define. Many of the st...

The idea of enhancing our mental functions through medical means makes many people uncomfortable. People have a vague feeling that altering our brains tinkers with the core of our personalities and the core of ourselves. It changes who we are, and doing so seems wrong, even if the exact reasons for the unease are difficult to define. Many of the st...

Advances in cognitive neuroscience and neuropharmacology are yielding exciting treatments for neurologic diseases. Many of these treatments are also likely to have uses for people without disease. Here, I review the ways in which medicine might make bodies and brains function better by modulating motor, cognitive, and affective systems. These poten...

Richard H. Dees is Associate Professor of Philosophy with appointments in Neurology and Medical Humanities at the University of Rochester, P.O. Box 270078, Rochester, NY 14627-0078, USA. e-mail: dees@mail.rochester.edu An earlier version of this paper was presented at a panel on Toleration in Early Modern Philosophy at the Pacific Division meetings...

Drug therapies that are already available can help patients improve their muscle mass and endurance, attention and memory, ability to learn, and moods. Future research, Anjan Chatterjee argues in this is- sue of Neurology, will almost certainly produce rela- tively safe wonder drugs that will allow us to manipulate our strength, our memory, our abi...

Toleration would seem to be the most rational response to deep conflicts. However, by examining the conditions under which trust can develop between warring parties, it becomes clear that a fundamental shift in values - a conversion - is required before toleration makes sense. This book argues that maintaining trust is the key to stable practices o...

Soulevant le probleme de la tolerance comme reponse rationnelle aux guerres de religion du XVII e siecle et aux conflits contemporains tels que Beyrouth, la Bosnie ou Belfast, l'A. montre que la rationalite de la tolerance ne peut s'imposer qu'au prix d'une conversion morale des participants a ces conflits. Examinant le lien entre rationalite et me...

Richard H. Dees is Associate Professor of Philosophy and a member of the core faculty in women's studies at Saint Louis University, P.O. Box 56907, St. Louis, MO, 63156-0907 USA. e-mail: deesrh@slu.edu This paper has benefited from the helpful comments from William Charron, the editors and referees of Hume Studies, and the graduate students in my s...

Etude de la theorie morale de Hume qui rend compte de la nuance des caracteres et de la complexite des qualites qui definissent la variete des vertus. Soulignant le lien entre les traits de caracteres et l'explication des actions humaines, d'une part, et examinant l'ideal du caractere parfait, d'autre part, l'A. montre que l'unite des vertus ne se...