Hanna Pickard

Hanna Pickard, philosopher and clinician who studies addiction, challenges simple moral or brain-disease stories. She discusses the title thought experiment, rat studies, and why context—trauma, isolation, identity, social conditions—matters. Conversation covers nuanced agency, responsibility without blame, and how society builds the cage many try to escape.

Hanna Pickard, a philosophy professor and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins, offers a fresh take on addiction. She challenges the broken-brain view and highlights how environment, choice, and identity shape drug use. She also recounts a revealing morphine experience and explains why community and compassionate responsibility matter for recovery.

Hanna Pickard, philosopher and bioethicist at Johns Hopkins and author on addiction, offers a nuanced critique of the brain-disease and moral models. She explores how addiction is defined when drug use 'goes wrong.' Conversation covers the rise and limits of the broken-brain view, identity changes in long-term addiction, heterogeneity of causes, and using responsibility constructively in care.

Hanna Pickard, Johns Hopkins philosopher and clinician, offers a humanistic, heterogeneous take on addiction. She questions the brain-disease vs moral-failing split. The conversation covers rat choice experiments, why the disease model persists, diverse causes like self-medication and self-harm, and responsibility without blame.

Hanna Pickard, Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Bioethics with clinical experience in addiction treatment. She challenges the brain-disease vs moral-failing split and explores why people keep using despite harms. The conversation covers rat studies, environmental explanations, a humanistic, heterogeneous paradigm, and rethinking responsibility without blame in treatment.