{{short description|Canadian philosopher (born 1972)}} {{use Canadian English|date=December 2025}} {{use mdy|date=December 2025}} {{Infobox academic |name =Hanna Pickard |birth_date= {{birth date and age|1972|8|18}} |birth_place=Kingston, Ontario |spouse=Ian Phillips |website=https://www.hannapickard.com/ |education= {{plain list| * Queen's University (BA, 1995) * Magdalen College, Oxford (BPhil, 1997) * All Souls College, Oxford (DPhil, 2001) }} |discipline=Philosopher |sub_discipline={{hlist|Philosophy of mind|philosophy of psychiatry|moral psychology|medical ethics}} |workplaces=Johns Hopkins University}} '''Hanna Pickard''' (born August 18, 1972) is a Canadian philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychiatry, moral psychology, and medical ethics. She is a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Bioethics at Johns Hopkins University with appointments in the William H. Miller III Department of Philosophy in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Berman Institute of Bioethics.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=|title=Hanna Pickard|url=https://research.jhu.edu/members/hanna-pickard/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=27 January 2021|website=Johns Hopkins Office of Research}}</ref>
== Early life and education == Pickard is from Kingston, Ontario. Pickard's parents, Toni and Michael Pickard, were both professors of law at Queen's University.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|last=Cruickshank|first=Saralyn|date=2019-07-10|title=Hanna Pickard, an expert in moral psychology, joins Johns Hopkins as a Bloomberg Distinguished Professor|url=https://hub.jhu.edu/2019/07/10/hanna-pickard-bloomberg-distinguished-professor/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-07-13|website=The Hub|publisher=Johns Hopkins University|language=en}}</ref>
Pickard completed a B.A. in philosophy at Queen's University in 1995. She then moved to the University of Oxford, where she earned a BPhil in philosophy at Magdalen College, Oxford and a DPhil at All Souls College, Oxford,<ref name=":1">{{Cite web|title=Hanna Pickard, DPhil|url=https://bioethics.jhu.edu/people/profile/hanna-pickard-phd/|access-date=2020-07-13|website=Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics|language=en-US}}</ref> where she was elected to a Prize Fellowship in 1997.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Dr Hanna Pickard {{!}} All Souls College|url=https://www.asc.ox.ac.uk/person/dr-hanna-pickard|access-date=2021-01-27|website=www.asc.ox.ac.uk}}</ref>
== Career == From 2007 until 2017, Pickard worked part-time as an assistant team therapist at the Oxford Complex Needs Service of the National Health Service, a specialist service for people with personality disorders within the Oxford Health NHS Trust. During this period, she also held a Fifty-Pound Fellowship at All Souls College. In addition, from 2010 until 2015, Pickard was a Wellcome Trust Biomedical Ethics Clinical Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Neuroethics, University of Oxford.<ref name=":1" /> Pickard was a reader in philosophy at the University of Birmingham from 2015 until 2017, and held a chair in philosophy of psychology there from 2017 until 2019. From 2017 until 2019, Pickard was also a visiting research scholar to the Program in Cognitive Science at Princeton University.<ref name=":1" /> In 2019, she joined Johns Hopkins University as the 45th Bloomberg Distinguished Professor, cross-appointed to the William H. Miller III Department of Philosophy in the Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Berman Institute of Bioethics with a secondary appointment to the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences.<ref name=":0" />
== Research == Pickard is a philosopher who specializes in the philosophy of mind, philosophy of psychiatry, moral psychology, and medical ethics.<ref>{{Cite web|last=|first=|date=12 July 2019|title=Hanna Pickard|url=https://philosophy.jhu.edu/directory/hanna-pickard/|archive-url=|archive-date=|access-date=2020-07-13|website=Krieger School of Arts and Sciences|language=en-US}}</ref> Inspired by her clinical experience, Pickard's work explores philosophical questions that arise out of real-world issues, especially clinical practice and related science, and spans a wide range of topics, including the nature of mental disorders, delusions, agency, character, emotions, self-harm, violence, placebos, therapeutic relationships, decision-making capacity, the self and social identity, and attitudes towards mental disorder and crime.<ref name=":1" />
=== Addiction === One of Pickard's primary research focuses is addiction. In contrast to two prevailing models of addiction, the moral model of addiction and the disease model of addiction, Pickard has developed a value-based framework for drug choice in substance use disorders that recognizes the many functions drugs serve and integrates a heterogeneous range of factors that influence addicted decision-making in addition to craving, including: psychiatric co-morbidity, limited socio-economic opportunities,<ref name=":3">{{Citation|last=Pickard|first=Hanna|chapter=The Puzzle of Addiction|date=2018-06-13|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.4324/9781315689197-2|title=The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy and Science of Addiction|pages=9–22|location=New York|publisher=Routledge|doi=10.4324/9781315689197-2|isbn=978-1-315-68919-7|s2cid=150064361 |access-date=2021-01-27|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last1=Pickard|first1=Hanna|chapter=Addiction in Context|date=2013-11-29|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199862580.003.0009|title=Addiction and Self-Control|pages=165–189|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-986258-0|access-date=2021-01-27|last2=Pearce|first2=Steve|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199862580.003.0009|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pickard|first=Hanna|date=April 2012|title=The Purpose in Chronic Addiction|url= |journal=AJOB Neuroscience|volume=3|issue=2|pages=40–49|doi=10.1080/21507740.2012.663058|pmid=22724074|issn=2150-7740|pmc=3378040}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Grgić|first=Filip|date=2020-03-11|title=Kevin Timpe, Meghan Griffith, & Neil Levy, (eds.), "The Routledge Companion to Free Will."|journal=Philosophy in Review|volume=40|issue=1|pages=41–42|doi=10.7202/1068160ar|issn=1206-5269|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pickard|first=Hanna|date=2020|title=What We're Not Talking about When We Talk about Addiction|url=https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/hast.1172|journal=Hastings Center Report|language=en|volume=50|issue=4|pages=37–46|doi=10.1002/hast.1172|pmid=33448417 |s2cid=225605587 |issn=1552-146X|url-access=subscription}}</ref> decision-making biases,<ref name=":3" /> denial and motivated irrationality,<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pickard|first=Hanna|date=June 2016|title=Denial in Addiction|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/mila.12106|journal=Mind & Language|volume=31|issue=3|pages=277–299|doi=10.1111/mila.12106|issn=0268-1064|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref>{{Citation|last1=Pickard|first1=Hanna|chapter=How do you know you have a drug problem? The role of knowledge of negative consequences in explaining drug choice in humans and rats|date=2016-09-22|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198727224.003.0002|title=Addiction and Choice|pages=29–48|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-872722-4|access-date=2021-01-27|last2=Ahmed|first2=Serge H.|doi=10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198727224.003.0002|url-access=subscription}}</ref> and a sense of self and social identity.<ref name=":3" /><ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pickard|first=Hanna|date=2020-02-10|title=Addiction and the self|journal=Noûs|volume=55 |issue=4 |pages=737–761 |doi=10.1111/nous.12328|issn=0029-4624|doi-access=free}}</ref>
=== Responsibility Without Blame === Another, yet strongly related, central research project is the ethical framework Pickard developed out of her experiences with the Oxfordshire Complex Needs Service and her research on addiction, titled “Responsibility without Blame,"<ref name=":2" /> which focuses on the ways in which society responds to behaviors such as crime and addiction.<ref name=":0" /> The framework separates the ideas of agency and responsibility from moral condemnation and blame,<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pickard|first=Hanna|date=2017-01-07|title=Responsibility without Blame for Addiction|journal=Neuroethics|volume=10|issue=1|pages=169–180|doi=10.1007/s12152-016-9295-2|pmid=28725286|pmc=5486507|issn=1874-5490|doi-access=free}}</ref> and emphasizes holding individuals accountable for harmful behavior without blaming them.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Pickard|first=Hanna|date=2011|title=Responsibility Without Blame: Empathy and the Effective Treatment of Personality Disorder|url= |journal=Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology|volume=18|issue=3|pages=209–224|doi=10.1353/ppp.2011.0032|pmid=22318087|issn=1086-3303|pmc=3272423}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Pickard|first1=Hanna|last2=Ward|first2=Lisa|editor1-first=K.W.M|editor1-last=Fulford|editor2-first=Martin|editor2-last=Davies|editor3-first=Richard G.T|editor3-last=Gipps|editor4-first=George|editor4-last=Graham|editor5-first=John Z|editor5-last=Sadler|editor6-first=Giovanni|editor6-last=Stanghellini|editor7-first=Tim|editor7-last=Thornton|date=2013-09-05|title=Responsibility without Blame|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579563.013.0066|journal=Oxford Handbooks Online|doi=10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199579563.013.0066|url-access=subscription}}</ref> Pickard has also developed an open access e-learning toolkit that teaches learners how to use this framework in practice.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Responsibility without Blame|url=https://www.responsibilitywithoutblame.org/|access-date=2021-01-27|language=en-GB}}</ref>
Pickard has also written extensively in collaboration with Nicola Lacey on the application of the Responsibility without Blame framework in criminal justice theory and practice.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lacey|first1=N.|last2=Pickard|first2=H.|date=2012-11-19|title=From the Consulting Room to the Court Room? Taking the Clinical Model of Responsibility Without Blame into the Legal Realm|journal=Oxford Journal of Legal Studies|volume=33|issue=1|pages=1–29|doi=10.1093/ojls/gqs028|pmid=24771953|pmc=3717781|issn=0143-6503|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lacey|first1=Nicola|last2=Pickard|first2=Hanna|date=2015-04-02|title=To Blame or to Forgive? Reconciling Punishment and Forgiveness in Criminal Justice|journal=Oxford Journal of Legal Studies|volume=35 |issue=4 |pages=665–696|doi=10.1093/ojls/gqv012|pmc=4768713|pmid=26937059|issn=0143-6503|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lacey|first1=Nicola|last2=Pickard|first2=Hanna|date=March 2015|title=The Chimera of Proportionality: Institutionalising Limits on Punishment in Contemporary Social and Political Systems|url= |journal=The Modern Law Review|volume=78|issue=2|pages=216–240|doi=10.1111/1468-2230.12114|pmid=25937675|issn=0026-7961|pmc=4411308}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Lacey|first1=Nicola|last2=Pickard|first2=Hanna|date=2018-04-23|title=A Dual-Process Approach to Criminal Law: Victims and the Clinical Model of Responsibility without Blame|url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jopp.12160|journal=Journal of Political Philosophy|volume=27|issue=2|pages=229–251|doi=10.1111/jopp.12160|issn=0963-8016|url-access=subscription}}</ref>
== Personal life == Pickard is married to fellow Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Ian Phillips.<ref name=":0" /> The two met when they were both fellows at All Souls College, Oxford.<ref>{{Cite web|first=Katie|last=Pearce|date=2020-03-09|title=BDP philosophers agree: They've got their 'dream jobs'|url=https://hub.jhu.edu/at-work/2020/03/09/family-snapshots-pickard-and-phillips/|access-date=2021-01-27|website=The Hub|language=en}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
=== Further reading === * {{cite book | last=Pickard | first=Hanna | title=What Would You Do Alone in a Cage with Nothing But Cocaine? | publisher=Princeton University Press | date=2026 | isbn=978-0-691-25353-4}}
== External links ==
* {{Official}} * {{Google scholar id}}
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pickard, Hanna}} Category:Living people Category:Canadian women philosophers Category:Canadian ethicists Category:21st-century Canadian philosophers Category:Canadian emigrants to the United States Category:People from Kingston, Ontario Category:Queen's University at Kingston alumni Category:Alumni of Magdalen College, Oxford Category:Alumni of All Souls College, Oxford Category:Academics of the University of Birmingham Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty Category:Medical ethicists Category:Canadian philosophers of mind Category:Canadian philosophers of science Category:Canadian expatriate academics in the United States Category:1972 births Category:Moral psychologists