Leemon McHenry

Leemon McHenry, PhD (b. 1956), is a bioethicist and a lecturer in philosophy at California State University, Northridge, in the United States. He has taught philosophy at Old Dominion University, Davidson College, Central Michigan University, Wittenberg University and Loyola Marymount University and has held visiting research positions at Johns Hopkins University and the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests center on medical ethics, metaphysics, and philosophy of science.

Education
McHenry received his doctorate from the University of Edinburgh, in Scotland, where he was Vans Dunlop Scholar in Logic and Metaphysics studing with Professor Timothy L. S. Sprigge.

Writings
Much of McHenry's writings relate to the philosophy of Alfred North Whitehead and process studies. He has focused attention on Whitehead's attempt to construct a unified general theory from the revolutionary developments in modern physics. McHenry has argued that Whitehead's event ontology is a more adequate basis for achieving this unification than a traditional substance metaphysics of thinkers such as Aristotle.

In medical ethics he has focused attention on the interplay between medicine and the pharmaceutical industry. He has criticized the corporate take over of medicine and the corrupting influence of the pharmaceutical industry on medicine. This includes dubious claims about chemical imbalance as a marketing ploy for selling antidepressants, industry-sponsored clinical research, ghostwriting for medical journals and direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceuticals.

Publications

 * 1992, Whitehead and Bradley: A Comparative Analysis, SUNY Series in Systematic Philosophy, Albany: State University of New York Press.
 * 1996, "Descriptive and Revisionary Theories of Events", Process Studies, 25, p. 90-103
 * 2002, British Philosophers: 1800-2000, ed. with P. Dematteis and P. Fosl, London and Detroit: Gale.
 * 2002, American Philosophers to 1950, ed. with P. Dematteis, London and Detroit: Gale.
 * 2003, Reflections on Philosophy: Introductory Essays, ed. with T. Yagisawa, New York: Longman.
 * 2005, "On the Origin of Great Ideas: Science in the Age of Big Pharma," Hastings Center Report, vol 35, no 6, p 17-19
 * 2006, "Ethical Issues in Psychopharmacology", Journal of Medical Ethics vol 32, p 405-410
 * 2007, "Maxwell's Field and Whitehead's Events: The Adventure of a Revolutionary Idea" in Subjectivity, Process, and Rationality edited by M. Weber and P. Basile, Frankfurt: Ontos Verlag.
 * 2007, "Commercial Influences on the Pursuit of Wisdom," London Review of Education, vol. 5, no 2, p. 131-142