HeyJaredDispatches from the Blood-Brain Barrier
Posting here about philosophy, psychiatry, and medicine, and when they're worth the trouble, about politics, books, and films. Reasonable disagreement welcome and expected.
- Indexed issues, last 90 days
- 4
- Latest publication
- Jul 26, 2026
- Audience
- Checking…
- Earliest in this view
- Jul 6, 2026
Latest issues
A Remembrance of Thomas E. Hill, Jr. (1937-2026) (opens the original)
Read excerpt
<img alt="" class="sizing-normal" height="864" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!lh_v!,w_1456,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ffc53e699-b5b8-4fe5-9f0c-af1ec8ef1418_610x864.png" w
We the People, We the Warriors (opens the original)
Read excerpt
[I have been reflecting on the recent 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and had a vivid memory of reading Talbot Brewer’s Op-Ed essay “We the People, We the Warriors” published in the Washington Post in August 2002. His keen observations about Bush’s rationale for invading Iraq and the moral dangers of going to war at that time have renewed relevance today. The essay had a big impact on my thinking about war and democracy in America after 9/11. I’ll follow up on this piece so
Does Severe Depression Undermine the Capacity to Choose MAiD? (opens the original)
Read excerpt
[This is a slightly revised version of the comments I delivered at the Central Division Meeting of the APA in Chicago in response to Prof. Quinn Gibson’s paper. I’ve revised it to focus on the version of Prof. Gibson’s essay published here last week. ~DM]Thank you to Quinn Gibson for the rich paper at the intersection of philosophy of psychiatry and clinical ethics. The paper examines the question: can we ever be confident enough that a mentally ill person has the decision-making capacity to req
Can We Tell Whether a Severely Depressed Patient is Competent to Choose Death? (opens the original)
Read excerpt
[This is the first guest post at Dispatches from the Blood-Brain Barrier. I had the good fortune to comment on an earlier version of this essay at a meeting of the American Philosophical Association in Chicago earlier this year. Quinn will be following the comments. —DM]Many jurisdictions are liberalizing their laws governing physician-assisted suicide and euthanasia. In Canada, where both are captured under what is called the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD) program, the changes have come rec
Publishing over time
Last 90 days. Choose a month to open its work.
Recurring subjects
Named in the text we hold. One piece can cover several.
Audience
No verified audience measurement yet.
About this data
Counts cover the work we have indexed. Tone needs enough text and a confident classification. Excerpts and episode notes are not full articles or transcripts.
Identity or attribution wrong? Suggest a correction.