Ryan Ravanpak. PhD.

Phillips Academy at Andover
MIT Department of Philosophy

Please feel free to email me for available drafts.

How Ought We Think About Medical Irreversibility?
(In Progress)

Should Suboxone Clinics Report to Prescription Drug Monitoring Programs?
(In Progress)

Until recently, federal patient confidentiality laws prohibited the recording of prescription data of controlled medications in state prescription drug monitoring programs when the underlying reason for that prescription was an engagement in addiction therapy. This restriction was lifted in 2020. I argue that this change in policy is insufficiently justified, both by empirical evidence pertaining to the deterrence and abuse of controlled medications, as well as the normative ethics that underlies our right to medical and digital privacy.

A Paper About Causation
(Revise and Resubmit, Synthese)

Psychological Continuity and Biological Persistence
(Under Review)

Parfitians say we are essentially persons (P1) and that our persistence has to do with psychological continuity (P2). Animalists say we are essentially animals (P3) and that our persistence has to do with the continuity of metabolic functions (P4). (P1) and (P3) are false. (P2) and (P4) are true. I explain how. Then, I go on to argue that we are essentially organisms, contingently animals, and contingently persons. 

Functional Continuity and You

I defend a performance-centered account of the persistence of biological life. A living thing x persists as y if and only if there is intra-functional and inter-functional continuity between the performance of the biological functions of x and the performance of the biological functions of y. Intra-functional continuity consists of chains of appropriate causal dependence between token instances of the same function-type. Inter-functional continuity consists in chains of appropriate causal dependence between token instances of distinct function-types. 

Partiality, Biological Life, and Prudential Concern

Using the metaphysics of personal identity developed in previous work, I argue that one of the primary sources of the special reasons of partiality is the same as the source of reasons having to do with a certain prudential concern about biological life.