Dr. Arthur Caplan is a bioethicist who has written extensively on forced, mandated, or coerced treatment of the mentally ill.

He is the Emanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics, and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

Dr. Caplan is also the primary investigator for the Scattergood Program for the Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health, housed at the Center for Bioethics, which is dedicated to examining the ethical dimensions of behavioral healthcare.

The author or editor of twenty-five books, including Smart Mice Not So Smart People, as well as over 500 papers in journals of medicine, science, philosophy, and health policy, Dr. Caplan contributed an article titled “Mind Reading” for The American Prospect’s special report “The Politics of Mental Illness.” This collection of articles by leading scholars in the field examines different aspects of mental illnesses and their implications for public policy.

Additionally, Dr. Caplan serves on the National Institutes of Mental Health special advisory panel on human experimentation on vulnerable subjects. He is a fellow of the Hastings Center, the NY Academy of Medicine, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.