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Philosophy
Carolyn Tanner Irish Humanities Building
215 South Central Campus Drive, 4th Floor
Salt Lake City, Ut 84112

Office: 411 CTIHB
Email:

>> Curriculum Vitae

For the last several years I have focused my philosophical attention on issues revolving around causation and causal-mechanical explanation. Successful explanations in biology generally take the form of elucidated mechanisms. In the past I have investigated and attempted to bring together different theories of mechanism (see my 2004 in Philosophy of Science). More recently, I attempt to extend the mechanical program so as to capture biological explanations of variation (see my 2009 in Biology and Philosophy).

With colleagues Teneille Brown (SJ Quinney School of Law) and Lisa Aspinwall (Department of Psychology), we are investigating how causal-mechanical explanations of bad behavior affect judgments of responsibility and punishment. Philosophers and legal scholars refer to these scientific explanations as a potential 'double-edged sword': Will these scientific explanations mitigate (i.e., decrease punishment because of an inability to do otherwise) or aggravate (i.e., increase punishment because of a perceived ongoing threat to society)? We are seeking to determine which way this sword cuts by surveying the people who assess responsibility and punishment--judges and jurors.

Project Grants: Judging Responsibility in the Psychopath: Yale University 2010

Judging Responsibility in the Psychopath: University of Utah 2010

The emergence of avian flu in Southeast Asia in 2004 and the subsequent explosion of the virus out of that region into Africa and Europe has renewed fears of a possible influenza pandemic on the order of the Great Pandemic of 1918. There are a host of ethical issues raised by the preparation for and response to this threat. My interests are at the local/institutional level (see my 2008 in Disaster Medicine and Public Health Preparedness): How will hospitals triage (or sort) patients during a pandemic to decide who gets what level of treatment? What criteria will guide this process of sorting? Are healthcare workers obligated to work in this environment? What are the obligations of hospital administration to prepare for such a threat?

Lately, I have been exploring the philosophical and historical issues pertaining to research on gene-environment interaction (or G×E). The concept of G×E refers to cases wherein different genetic groups respond differently to the same array of environments. G×E has resided at the heart of the nature-nurture debate since the very origins of the concept. I have been exploring both the history of this research (see my 2007 in Development and Psychopathology, and my 2008 in the Journal of the History of Biology), as well as the philosophical issues concerning causation that this research raises (see my 2009 in Biology and Philosophy).

My historical and philosophical interests in G×E carry over into the bioethical implications of that research. Cases of G×E are being found for a host of complex human traits (e.g. antisocial personality disorder, depression, schizophrenia, and asthma). Most often, cases of G×E are conceptualized as if they reveal a “genetic predisposition” to the trait under investigation. I argue that this concept fundamentally misconstrues this research, and so I have introduced a new concept to accurately capture the results: interactive predisposition. My bioethical interests in this area revolve around how this switch from a genetic predisposition to an interactive predisposition reconfigures some of the ongoing debates over genetic screening (see my 2009 in Journal of Medicine and Philosophy).