Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

6582

Date

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Major

Philosophy

Committee Chair

Thomas Nernon

Committee Member

Daniel Smith

Committee Member

Andrei Znamenski

Abstract

Anti-depressants (ADs) appear not to work very well, and present a sequence of puzzling problems: side effects, a long latency period before recovery, an uncertain theoretical foundation for psychopharmacology, the high relative efficacy of placebos, and the generally low efficacy of ADs. Behind these empirical and scientific problems lie a host of ethical issues within drug development: publication bias, conflicts of interest, ghost authorship, and informed consent. I review these issues and find that: (1) there is no reason why ADs should be effective for humans, given their origin in rodent research; (2) the placebo effect rivals the drug effect, showing that ADs are ineffective; (3) drug companies andf doctors unethically continue to push the use of ADs; (4) analyses from science and the philosophy of science show that ADs are scientifically unsound; and (5) ethical analyses show that Ads are ethically intolerable.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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