Claudia Maria Passos Ferreira

Assistant Professor of Bioethics

Professional overview

Claudia Passos-Ferreira is Assistant Professor of Bioethics. She studied psychology at the Rio de Janeiro State University and earned her MA and Ph.D. in the program of Human Sciences and Health Sciences in Public Health there.  She obtained a second Ph.D. in Philosophy at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.

Passos-Ferreira has published on philosophy, psychology, and neuroethics.  She has collaborated in crosscultural research on moral development and social cognition (on topics such as empathy, fairness, ownership, intersubjectivity). She has published a book on Freud and mental causation. In philosophy of mind, she has published on self-knowledge, introspection, and external mental content.  Passos-Ferreira’s current research program focuses on the development of consciousness, including what theories of consciousness say about infant consciousness and machine consciousness, and how these theories shed light on ethical issues. 

Prior to joining NYU, Passos-Ferreira was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Federal University of Rio de Janeiro with the Ethics and Biotechnologies project., and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the State University of Rio de Janeiro with the Ecological Mind and Self-Consciousness project.  Earlier in her career, she was awarded a Residency Scholarship from the Brazilian Health Ministry and she received clinical training in Child-Adolescent Mental Health and Mental Health. She has worked as clinical psychologist in private practice and public hospitals as well in Brazil. 

Education

BA, Psychology, Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

MA and PhD, Human Sciences and Health Sciences in Public Health, Rio de Janeiro State University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

PhD, Philosophy, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Publications

Publications

Are infants conscious?

Empathizing with The Intellectually Disabled

Freud's views on mental causation

Editorial introduction symposium on pain amnesia and qualitative memory

In Defense of Empathy: a response to Prinz

O self como centro de ação em James e Winnicott

Ownership reasoning in children across cultures

Does the brain have anything to do with morality? Mirror neurons, empathy and neuromorality

A ritalina no Brasil: Produções, discursose práticas

Fairness in distributive justice by 3- and 5-year-olds across seven cultures

Homo negotiatus