Neuroethics
Encyclopedia
Neuroethics is the ethics
of neuroscience
, and the neuroscience of ethics.
The ethics of neuroscience deals with matters as a subclass of bioethics
. Examples include the issue treatment for via the administration of psychopharmaceuticals substances, or mind altering drugs to an autistic
person to make them more "normal", or the ethics of brain surgery such as performing an anterior commissurotomy
to control epilepsy, a consequentialist
moral anthropologist considering the consequences of Mayan
brain surgery.
The neuroscience of ethics deals with questions of moral development in the child, as in work of Piaget
in the 20th century, or more modern theories of free will that derive from evolutionary theories and molecular biology.
The origin of the term "neuroethics" has occupied some writers. Rees and Rose (as cited in "References" on page 9) claim neuroethics is a neologism that emerged only at the beginning of the 21st century, largely through the oral and written
communication
s of ethicist
s and philosophers. They state that neuroethics addresses concerns about the effects that neuroscience and neurotechnology will have on other aspects of human life, specifically personal responsibility, law
, and justice
. Further, they claim that neuroethical problems will become real by the 2020s.
Adina Roskies identified two major divisions in neuroethics: the ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. Research falling under the first area, the ethics of neuroscience, is focused on the ethics of practice of neuroscience and "the implications of our mechanistic understanding of brain function for society... integrating neuroscientific knowledge with ethical and social thought". The neuroscience of ethics borrows from the field of neurophilosophy and examines the neurological foundations of moral cognition.
According to Racine (2010), the term was coined by the Harvard physician Anneliese A. Pontius in 1973 in a paper entitled "Neuro-ethics of 'walking' in the newborn" for the Perceptual and Motor Skills. The author reproposed the term in 1993 in his paper for Psychological Report, often wrongly mentioned as the first title cointaining the word "neuroethics". Before 1993, the American neurologist Ronald Cranford has used the term (see Cranford 1989).
Illes (2003) records uses, from the scientific literature, from 1989 and 1991.
Current definitions of neuroethics emphasize the ethical, legal and social implications of neuroscience. Writer William Safire
defined it as "the examination of what is right and wrong, good and bad about the treatment of, perfection of, or unwelcome invasion of and worrisome manipulation of the human brain."
If neuroethics is understood in this way, a typical question investigated by the field might be: What is the difference between treating a human
neurological
disease
and simply enhancing the human brain
? Another such question might be: Is it fair for the wealth
y to have access to neurotechnology
, while the poor
do not
? Neuroethical problems could complement or compound ethical
issues raised by genomics
, genetics
, and human genetic engineering
(see Gattaca argument).
However, Dartmouth College
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Director Michael Gazzaniga
argues that definitions such as Safire's are inadequate, since knowledge of brain mechanisms can illuminate a broad range of ethical questions. Gazzaniga states that "neuroethics is more than just bioethics for the brain." In his book The Ethical Brain (see References), he defines the field as: "the examination of how we want to deal with the social issues of disease, normality, mortality, lifestyle, and the philosophy of living informed by our understanding of underlying brain mechanisms" (Gazzaniga's emphasis).
Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga puts this view succinctly by stating that "It is—or should be—an effort to come up with a brain-based philosophy of life."
develops and its implications continue to be revealed. At present, however, we can discern two general categories of neuroethical issue: those emerging from what we can do and those emerging from what we know.
In the first category are the ethical problems raised by advances in functional neuroimaging
, psychopharmacology
, brain implants and brain-machine interfaces. In the second category are the ethical problems raised by our growing understanding of the neural bases of behavior, personality, consciousness, and states of spiritual transcendence.
for many years before the field adopted the label “neuroethics,” and some of this work remains of great relevance and value. However, the early 21st century saw a tremendous upsurge in interest in the ethics of neuroscience
, as evidenced by numerous meetings, publications and organizations dedicated to this topic.
In 2002 there were several meetings that drew together neuroscientists and ethicists to discuss neuroethics: the American Association for the Advancement of Science
with the journal Neuron, University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics with the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the Royal Society of London, and Stanford University and the Dana Foundation
. This last meeting was the largest, and resulted in a book, Neuroethics: Mapping the Field, edited by Steven J. Marcus and published by Dana Press. That same year the Economist ran a cover story entitled “---“ and articles on neuroethics began to appear in neuroscience journals, specifically in Nature Neuroscience, Neuron and a special issue of Brain and Cognition.
From 2003-2005 the number of neuroethics meetings, symposia and publications continued to grow. The 38,000 plus members of the Society for Neuroscience recognized the importance of neuroethics by inaugurating an annual “special lecture” on the topic, first given by Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science Magazine. Several overlapping networks of scientists and scholars began to coalesce around neuroethics-related projects and themes. For example, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities established a Neuroethics Affinity Group, students at the London School of Economics established the Neuroscience and Society Network linking scholars from several different institutions, and a group of scientists and funders from around the world began discussing ways to support international collaboration in neuroethics through what came to be called the International Neuroethics Network. Stanford began publishing the monthly Stanford Neuroethics Newsletter, Penn developed the informational website, neuroethics.upenn.edu, and the Neuroethics and Law Blog was launched.
Several relevant books were published during this time as well: Sandra Ackerman’s Hard Science, Hard Choices: Facts, Ethics and Policies Guiding Brain Science Today (Dana Press), Michael Gazzaniga’s The Ethical Brain (Dana Press), Judy Illes’ edited volume, Neuroethics: Defining the Issues in Theory, Practice and Policy (both Oxford University Press), Dai Rees and Steven Rose’s edited volume “The New Brain Sciences: Perils and Prospects (Cambridge University Press) and Steven Rose’s The Future of the Brain (Oxford University Press).
2006 marked the founding of the Neuroethics Society, an international group of scientists, scholars and students whose mission statement explains that “in classrooms, courtrooms, offices and homes around the world, neuroscience is giving us powerful new tools for achieving our goals and prompting a new understanding of ourselves as social, moral and spiritual beings. The mission of the Neuroethics Society is to promote the development and responsible application of neuroscience through better understanding of its capabilities and consequences.” Steven Hyman agreed to be the first President of the Neuroethics Society.
In 2007 the National Core for Neuroethics
was established at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada, with mandate to tackle the ethical, legal, policy and social implications of frontier neuroscience through high impact research, education and outreach to ensure the close alignment of innovation and human values.
In 2008, the Center for Neurotechnology Studies of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
in Arlington
, Virginia
, was formed to study those neuroethical, legal and social issues arising from the development and use of neuroscientifically-based technologies (such as neuroimaging, neurogenetics and neuroproteomics, deep brain and transcranial magnetic stimulation, nano-neuroscientific methods, novel pharmacological agents and pharmaceutics, brain-machine interfacing, and cognitive machine systems) in research and applications in medicine, public life and national security, intelligence and defense. The Center sponsors and presents the Capital Consortium for Neuroscience, Ethics, Legal and Social issues (CCNELSI), a monthly lecture and symposium series in the greater metropolitan Washington DC-region, and the annual national Neuroscience- Ethics, Legal and Social Issues (NELSI) conference series.
In January 2009, The University of Oxford established The Wellcome Centre for Neuroethics. The centre aims to address concerns about the effects neuroscience and neurotechnologies will have on various aspects of human life. Its research focuses on five key areas: cognitive enhancement; borderline consciousness and severe neurological impairment; free will, responsibility and addiction; the neuroscience of morality and decision-making; and applied neuroethics.
In the same year, the University of Pennsylvania expanded their neuroethics program with the opening of the cross-school Center for Neuroscience & Society. The stated mission of this Center is to increase understanding of the impact of neuroscience on society through research and teaching, and to encourage the responsible use of neuroscience for the benefit of humanityhttp://neuroethics.upenn.edu.
.” The growing role of psychopharmacology
in everyday life raises a number of ethical issues, for example the influence of drug marketing on our conceptions of mental health and normalcy, and the increasingly malleable sense of personal identity that results from what Peter Kramer called “cosmetic psychopharmacology.”
Nonpharmacologic methods of altering brain function are currently enjoying a period of rapid development, with a resurgence of psychosurgery
for the treatment of medication refractory mental illnesses and promising new therapies for neurological and psychiatric illnesses based on deep brain stimulation as well as relatively noninvasive transcranial stimulation methods. Research on brain-machine interfaces is primarily in a preclinical phase but promises to enable thought-based control of computers and robots by paralyzed patients. As the tragic history of frontal lobotomy reminds us, permanent alteration of the brain cannot be undertaken lightly. Although nonpharmacologic brain interventions are exclusively aimed at therapeutic goals, the US military sponsors research in this general area that is presumably aimed at enhancing the capabilities of soldiers.
Researchers are also finding brain imaging correlates of a myriad of different psychological traits, including personality, intelligence, mental health vulnerabilities, attitudes toward particular ethnic groups, and predilection for violent crime. Unconscious racial attitudes are manifest in brain activation. These capabilities of brain imaging, actual and potential, raise a number of ethical issues. The most obvious concern involves privacy. For example, employers, marketers, and the government all have a strong interest in knowing the abilities, personality, truthfulness and other mental contents of certain people. This raises the question of whether, when, and how to ensure the privacy of our own minds.
Another ethical problem is that brain scans are often viewed as more accurate and objective than in fact they are. Many layers of signal processing, statistical analysis and interpretation separate imaged brain activity from the psychological traits and states inferred from it. There is a danger that the public (including judges and juries, employers, insurers, etc.) will ignore these complexities and treat brain images as a kind of indisputable truth.
A related misconception is called neuro-realism: In its simplest form, this line of thought says that something is real because it can be measured with electronic equipment. A person who claims to have pain, or low libido, or unpleasant emotions is "really" sick if these symptoms are supported by a brain scan, and healthy or normal if correlates cannot be found in a brain scan.
believe that such drug usage is unethical and that the concept of cosmetic pharmacology is a manifestation of naive consumerism. Proponents, such as philosopher Arthur Caplan
, state that it is an individual's (rather than government's, or physician's) right to determine whether to use a drug for cosmetic purposes. Anjan chatterjee, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania
, has argued that western medicine stands on the brink of a neuro-enhancement revolution in which people will be able to improve their memory and attention through pharamacological means. Jacob Appel, a Brown University bioethicist, has raised concerns about the possibility of employers mandating such enhancement for their workers.
Main Editor: Neil Levy, CAPPE, Melbourne; University of Oxford
Neuroethics is an international peer-reviewed journal dedicated to academic articles on the ethical, legal, political, social and philosophical issues provoked by research in the contemporary sciences of the mind, especially, but not only, neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology. The journal publishes high-quality reflections on questions raised by the sciences of the mind, and on the ways in which the sciences of the mind illuminate longstanding debates in ethics.
Programs
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
of neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
, and the neuroscience of ethics.
The ethics of neuroscience deals with matters as a subclass of bioethics
Bioethics
Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy....
. Examples include the issue treatment for via the administration of psychopharmaceuticals substances, or mind altering drugs to an autistic
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
person to make them more "normal", or the ethics of brain surgery such as performing an anterior commissurotomy
Commissurotomy
A commissurotomy is a surgical incision of a commissure in the body, as one made in the heart at the edges of the commissure formed by cardiac valves, or one made in the brain to treat certain psychiatric disorders....
to control epilepsy, a consequentialist
Consequentialism
Consequentialism is the class of normative ethical theories holding that the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness of that conduct...
moral anthropologist considering the consequences of Mayan
Maya civilization
The Maya is a Mesoamerican civilization, noted for the only known fully developed written language of the pre-Columbian Americas, as well as for its art, architecture, and mathematical and astronomical systems. Initially established during the Pre-Classic period The Maya is a Mesoamerican...
brain surgery.
The neuroscience of ethics deals with questions of moral development in the child, as in work of Piaget
Piaget
Piaget is surname of:* Edouard Piaget , Swiss entomologist* Jean Piaget , Swiss developmental psychologist* Paul Piaget , a Swiss rower...
in the 20th century, or more modern theories of free will that derive from evolutionary theories and molecular biology.
The origin of the term "neuroethics" has occupied some writers. Rees and Rose (as cited in "References" on page 9) claim neuroethics is a neologism that emerged only at the beginning of the 21st century, largely through the oral and written
Writing
Writing is the representation of language in a textual medium through the use of a set of signs or symbols . It is distinguished from illustration, such as cave drawing and painting, and non-symbolic preservation of language via non-textual media, such as magnetic tape audio.Writing most likely...
communication
Communication
Communication is the activity of conveying meaningful information. Communication requires a sender, a message, and an intended recipient, although the receiver need not be present or aware of the sender's intent to communicate at the time of communication; thus communication can occur across vast...
s of ethicist
Ethicist
An ethicist is one whose judgment on ethics and ethical codes has come to be trusted by a specific community, and is expressed in some way that makes it possible for others to mimic or approximate that judgement...
s and philosophers. They state that neuroethics addresses concerns about the effects that neuroscience and neurotechnology will have on other aspects of human life, specifically personal responsibility, law
Law
Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...
, and justice
Justice
Justice is a concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics; justice is the act of being just and/or fair.-Concept of justice:...
. Further, they claim that neuroethical problems will become real by the 2020s.
Adina Roskies identified two major divisions in neuroethics: the ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. Research falling under the first area, the ethics of neuroscience, is focused on the ethics of practice of neuroscience and "the implications of our mechanistic understanding of brain function for society... integrating neuroscientific knowledge with ethical and social thought". The neuroscience of ethics borrows from the field of neurophilosophy and examines the neurological foundations of moral cognition.
Scope
No specific definition of neuroethics is universally accepted.According to Racine (2010), the term was coined by the Harvard physician Anneliese A. Pontius in 1973 in a paper entitled "Neuro-ethics of 'walking' in the newborn" for the Perceptual and Motor Skills. The author reproposed the term in 1993 in his paper for Psychological Report, often wrongly mentioned as the first title cointaining the word "neuroethics". Before 1993, the American neurologist Ronald Cranford has used the term (see Cranford 1989).
Illes (2003) records uses, from the scientific literature, from 1989 and 1991.
Current definitions of neuroethics emphasize the ethical, legal and social implications of neuroscience. Writer William Safire
William Safire
William Lewis Safire was an American author, columnist, journalist and presidential speechwriter....
defined it as "the examination of what is right and wrong, good and bad about the treatment of, perfection of, or unwelcome invasion of and worrisome manipulation of the human brain."
If neuroethics is understood in this way, a typical question investigated by the field might be: What is the difference between treating a human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
neurological
Neurology
Neurology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the nervous system. Specifically, it deals with the diagnosis and treatment of all categories of disease involving the central, peripheral, and autonomic nervous systems, including their coverings, blood vessels, and all effector tissue,...
disease
Disease
A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...
and simply enhancing the human brain
Human brain
The human brain has the same general structure as the brains of other mammals, but is over three times larger than the brain of a typical mammal with an equivalent body size. Estimates for the number of neurons in the human brain range from 80 to 120 billion...
? Another such question might be: Is it fair for the wealth
Wealth
Wealth is the abundance of valuable resources or material possessions. The word wealth is derived from the old English wela, which is from an Indo-European word stem...
y to have access to neurotechnology
Neurotechnology
Neurotechnology is any technology that has a fundamental influence on how people understand the brain and various aspects of consciousness, thought, and higher order activities in the brain...
, while the poor
Poverty
Poverty is the lack of a certain amount of material possessions or money. Absolute poverty or destitution is inability to afford basic human needs, which commonly includes clean and fresh water, nutrition, health care, education, clothing and shelter. About 1.7 billion people are estimated to live...
do not
Class stratification
Class stratification is a form of social stratification in which a society tends to divide into separate classes whose members have differential access to resources and power. An economic and cultural rift usually exists between different classes...
? Neuroethical problems could complement or compound ethical
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
issues raised by genomics
Genomics
Genomics is a discipline in genetics concerning the study of the genomes of organisms. The field includes intensive efforts to determine the entire DNA sequence of organisms and fine-scale genetic mapping efforts. The field also includes studies of intragenomic phenomena such as heterosis,...
, genetics
Genetics
Genetics , a discipline of biology, is the science of genes, heredity, and variation in living organisms....
, and human genetic engineering
Human genetic engineering
Human genetic engineering is the alteration of an individual's genotype with the aim of choosing the phenotype of a newborn or changing the existing phenotype of a child or adult....
(see Gattaca argument).
Dartmouth College
Dartmouth College is a private, Ivy League university in Hanover, New Hampshire, United States. The institution comprises a liberal arts college, Dartmouth Medical School, Thayer School of Engineering, and the Tuck School of Business, as well as 19 graduate programs in the arts and sciences...
Center for Cognitive Neuroscience Director Michael Gazzaniga
Michael Gazzaniga
Michael S. Gazzaniga is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he heads the new SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind. He is one of the leading researchers in cognitive neuroscience, the study of the neural basis of mind...
argues that definitions such as Safire's are inadequate, since knowledge of brain mechanisms can illuminate a broad range of ethical questions. Gazzaniga states that "neuroethics is more than just bioethics for the brain." In his book The Ethical Brain (see References), he defines the field as: "the examination of how we want to deal with the social issues of disease, normality, mortality, lifestyle, and the philosophy of living informed by our understanding of underlying brain mechanisms" (Gazzaniga's emphasis).
Neuroscientist Michael Gazzaniga puts this view succinctly by stating that "It is—or should be—an effort to come up with a brain-based philosophy of life."
Two categories of problems
Neuroethics encompasses the myriad ways in which developments in basic and clinical neuroscience intersect with social and ethical issues. The field is so young that any attempt to define its scope and limits now will undoubtedly be proved wrong in the future, as neuroscienceNeuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
develops and its implications continue to be revealed. At present, however, we can discern two general categories of neuroethical issue: those emerging from what we can do and those emerging from what we know.
In the first category are the ethical problems raised by advances in functional neuroimaging
Neuroimaging
Neuroimaging includes the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure, function/pharmacology of the brain...
, psychopharmacology
Psychopharmacology
Psychopharmacology is the scientific study of the actions of drugs and their effects on mood, sensation, thinking, and behavior...
, brain implants and brain-machine interfaces. In the second category are the ethical problems raised by our growing understanding of the neural bases of behavior, personality, consciousness, and states of spiritual transcendence.
Important activity in 2002 to 2009: The History of Neuroethics
There is no doubt that people were thinking and writing about the ethical implications of neuroscienceNeuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
for many years before the field adopted the label “neuroethics,” and some of this work remains of great relevance and value. However, the early 21st century saw a tremendous upsurge in interest in the ethics of neuroscience
Neuroscience
Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system. Traditionally, neuroscience has been seen as a branch of biology. However, it is currently an interdisciplinary science that collaborates with other fields such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, linguistics, mathematics,...
, as evidenced by numerous meetings, publications and organizations dedicated to this topic.
In 2002 there were several meetings that drew together neuroscientists and ethicists to discuss neuroethics: the American Association for the Advancement of Science
American Association for the Advancement of Science
The American Association for the Advancement of Science is an international non-profit organization with the stated goals of promoting cooperation among scientists, defending scientific freedom, encouraging scientific responsibility, and supporting scientific education and science outreach for the...
with the journal Neuron, University of Pennsylvania Center for Bioethics with the Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, the Royal Society of London, and Stanford University and the Dana Foundation
Dana Foundation
The Dana Foundation is a private philanthropic organization based in New York dedicated to the support of grants and outreach in science, health, and education, particularly in the neurosciences...
. This last meeting was the largest, and resulted in a book, Neuroethics: Mapping the Field, edited by Steven J. Marcus and published by Dana Press. That same year the Economist ran a cover story entitled “---“ and articles on neuroethics began to appear in neuroscience journals, specifically in Nature Neuroscience, Neuron and a special issue of Brain and Cognition.
From 2003-2005 the number of neuroethics meetings, symposia and publications continued to grow. The 38,000 plus members of the Society for Neuroscience recognized the importance of neuroethics by inaugurating an annual “special lecture” on the topic, first given by Donald Kennedy, editor-in-chief of Science Magazine. Several overlapping networks of scientists and scholars began to coalesce around neuroethics-related projects and themes. For example, the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities established a Neuroethics Affinity Group, students at the London School of Economics established the Neuroscience and Society Network linking scholars from several different institutions, and a group of scientists and funders from around the world began discussing ways to support international collaboration in neuroethics through what came to be called the International Neuroethics Network. Stanford began publishing the monthly Stanford Neuroethics Newsletter, Penn developed the informational website, neuroethics.upenn.edu, and the Neuroethics and Law Blog was launched.
Several relevant books were published during this time as well: Sandra Ackerman’s Hard Science, Hard Choices: Facts, Ethics and Policies Guiding Brain Science Today (Dana Press), Michael Gazzaniga’s The Ethical Brain (Dana Press), Judy Illes’ edited volume, Neuroethics: Defining the Issues in Theory, Practice and Policy (both Oxford University Press), Dai Rees and Steven Rose’s edited volume “The New Brain Sciences: Perils and Prospects (Cambridge University Press) and Steven Rose’s The Future of the Brain (Oxford University Press).
2006 marked the founding of the Neuroethics Society, an international group of scientists, scholars and students whose mission statement explains that “in classrooms, courtrooms, offices and homes around the world, neuroscience is giving us powerful new tools for achieving our goals and prompting a new understanding of ourselves as social, moral and spiritual beings. The mission of the Neuroethics Society is to promote the development and responsible application of neuroscience through better understanding of its capabilities and consequences.” Steven Hyman agreed to be the first President of the Neuroethics Society.
In 2007 the National Core for Neuroethics
National Core for Neuroethics
The National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia was established in August 2007, with generous support from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Institute of Mental Health and Addiction, Canada Foundation for Innovation, the British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund,...
was established at the University of British Columbia, in Vancouver, Canada, with mandate to tackle the ethical, legal, policy and social implications of frontier neuroscience through high impact research, education and outreach to ensure the close alignment of innovation and human values.
In 2008, the Center for Neurotechnology Studies of the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
Potomac Institute for Policy Studies
The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is an independent, 501, not-for-profit public policy research institute located in Arlington, Virginia. The Institute was founded in 1994, shortly after the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment was disbanded, with the intent to assume some of the...
in Arlington
Arlington County, Virginia
Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The land that became Arlington was originally donated by Virginia to the United States government to form part of the new federal capital district. On February 27, 1801, the United States Congress organized the area as a subdivision of...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, was formed to study those neuroethical, legal and social issues arising from the development and use of neuroscientifically-based technologies (such as neuroimaging, neurogenetics and neuroproteomics, deep brain and transcranial magnetic stimulation, nano-neuroscientific methods, novel pharmacological agents and pharmaceutics, brain-machine interfacing, and cognitive machine systems) in research and applications in medicine, public life and national security, intelligence and defense. The Center sponsors and presents the Capital Consortium for Neuroscience, Ethics, Legal and Social issues (CCNELSI), a monthly lecture and symposium series in the greater metropolitan Washington DC-region, and the annual national Neuroscience- Ethics, Legal and Social Issues (NELSI) conference series.
In January 2009, The University of Oxford established The Wellcome Centre for Neuroethics. The centre aims to address concerns about the effects neuroscience and neurotechnologies will have on various aspects of human life. Its research focuses on five key areas: cognitive enhancement; borderline consciousness and severe neurological impairment; free will, responsibility and addiction; the neuroscience of morality and decision-making; and applied neuroethics.
In the same year, the University of Pennsylvania expanded their neuroethics program with the opening of the cross-school Center for Neuroscience & Society. The stated mission of this Center is to increase understanding of the impact of neuroscience on society through research and teaching, and to encourage the responsible use of neuroscience for the benefit of humanityhttp://neuroethics.upenn.edu.
Sources of information on neuroethics
The books, articles and websites mentioned above are by no means a complete list of good neuroethics information sources. For example, readings and websites that focus on specific aspects of neuroethics, such as brain imaging or enhancement, are not included. Nor are more recent sources, such as Walter Glannon’s book Bioethics and the Brain (Oxford University Press) and his reader, entitled Defining Right and Wrong in Brain Science (Dana Press). We should also here mention a book that was in many ways ahead of its time, Robert Blank’s Brain Policy (published in 1999 by Georgetown University Press). The scholarly literature on neuroethics has grown so quickly that one cannot easily list all of the worthwhile articles, and several journals are now soliciting neuroethics submissions for publication, including the American Journal of Bioethics – Neuroscience, Biosocities, the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, and the forthcoming Neuroethics. The web now has many sites, blogs and portals offering information about neuroethics. A list can be found at the end of this entry.Key issues in neuroethics
Neuroethics encompasses a wide range of issues, which can only be sampled here. Some have close ties to traditional biomedical ethics, in that different versions of these issues can arise in connection with organ systems other than the brain. For example, how should incidental findings be handled when a presumed healthy research subject is scanned for neuroscience research and the scan reveals an abnormality? How safe are the drugs used to enhance normal brain function? These are neuroethical issues with clear precedents in traditional bioethics. They are important issues, and luckily we can call upon society’s experience with the relevant precedents to help determine the best courses of action in the present cases. In contrast, many neuroethical issues are at least partly novel, and this accounts for some of the intellectual fascination of neuroethics. These relatively newer issues force us to think about the relation between mind and brain and its ethical implications.Brain interventions
The ethics of neurocognitive enhancement, that is the use of drugs and other brain interventions to make normal people “better than well,” is an example of a neuroethical issue with both familiar and novel aspects. On the one hand, we can be informed by previous bioethical work on physical enhancements such as doping for strength in sports and the use of human growth hormone for normal boys of short stature. On the other hand, there are also some arguably novel ethical issues that arise in connection with brain enhancement, because these enhancements affect how people think and feel, thus raising the relatively new issues of “cognitive libertyCognitive liberty
Cognitive liberty is the freedom of sovereign control over one's own consciousness. It is an extension of the concepts of freedom of thought and self-ownership....
.” The growing role of psychopharmacology
Psychopharmacology
Psychopharmacology is the scientific study of the actions of drugs and their effects on mood, sensation, thinking, and behavior...
in everyday life raises a number of ethical issues, for example the influence of drug marketing on our conceptions of mental health and normalcy, and the increasingly malleable sense of personal identity that results from what Peter Kramer called “cosmetic psychopharmacology.”
Nonpharmacologic methods of altering brain function are currently enjoying a period of rapid development, with a resurgence of psychosurgery
Psychosurgery
Psychosurgery, also called neurosurgery for mental disorder , is the neurosurgical treatment of mental disorder. Psychosurgery has always been a controversial medical field. The modern history of psychosurgery begins in the 1880s under the Swiss psychiatrist Gottlieb Burckhardt...
for the treatment of medication refractory mental illnesses and promising new therapies for neurological and psychiatric illnesses based on deep brain stimulation as well as relatively noninvasive transcranial stimulation methods. Research on brain-machine interfaces is primarily in a preclinical phase but promises to enable thought-based control of computers and robots by paralyzed patients. As the tragic history of frontal lobotomy reminds us, permanent alteration of the brain cannot be undertaken lightly. Although nonpharmacologic brain interventions are exclusively aimed at therapeutic goals, the US military sponsors research in this general area that is presumably aimed at enhancing the capabilities of soldiers.
Brain imaging
In addition to the important issues of safety and incidental findings, mentioned above, some arise from the unprecedented and rapidly developing ability to correlate brain activation with psychological states and traits. One of the most widely discussed new applications of imaging is based on correlations between brain activity and intentional deception. A number of different research groups have identified fMRI correlates of intentional deception in laboratory tasks, and despite the skepticism of many experts, the technique has already been commercialized. A more feasible application of brain imaging is “neuromarketing,” whereby people’s conscious or unconscious desire for certain products can purportedly be measured.Researchers are also finding brain imaging correlates of a myriad of different psychological traits, including personality, intelligence, mental health vulnerabilities, attitudes toward particular ethnic groups, and predilection for violent crime. Unconscious racial attitudes are manifest in brain activation. These capabilities of brain imaging, actual and potential, raise a number of ethical issues. The most obvious concern involves privacy. For example, employers, marketers, and the government all have a strong interest in knowing the abilities, personality, truthfulness and other mental contents of certain people. This raises the question of whether, when, and how to ensure the privacy of our own minds.
Another ethical problem is that brain scans are often viewed as more accurate and objective than in fact they are. Many layers of signal processing, statistical analysis and interpretation separate imaged brain activity from the psychological traits and states inferred from it. There is a danger that the public (including judges and juries, employers, insurers, etc.) will ignore these complexities and treat brain images as a kind of indisputable truth.
A related misconception is called neuro-realism: In its simplest form, this line of thought says that something is real because it can be measured with electronic equipment. A person who claims to have pain, or low libido, or unpleasant emotions is "really" sick if these symptoms are supported by a brain scan, and healthy or normal if correlates cannot be found in a brain scan.
Pharmacological enhancement
Cosmetic neuro-pharmacology, the use of drugs to improve cognition in normal healthy individuals, is highly controversial. Some case reports with the antidepressant Prozac indicated that patients seemed "better than well," and authors hypothesized that this effect might be observed in individuals not afflicted with psychiatric disorders. Following these case reports much controversy arose over the veracity and ethics of the cosmetic use of these antidepressants. Opponents of cosmetic pharmacologyCosmetic pharmacology
Cosmetic psychopharmacology, a term coined in 1990 by the psychiatrist Peter D. Kramer and popularized in his 1993 book Listening to Prozac, refers to the use of drugs to move persons from a normal psychological state to another normal state that is more desired or better socially rewarded — e.g.,...
believe that such drug usage is unethical and that the concept of cosmetic pharmacology is a manifestation of naive consumerism. Proponents, such as philosopher Arthur Caplan
Arthur Caplan
Arthur L. Caplan, Ph.D., is Emmanuel and Robert Hart Professor of Bioethics and director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania. Prior to coming to Penn in 1994, Caplan taught at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pittsburgh, and Columbia University. He was the...
, state that it is an individual's (rather than government's, or physician's) right to determine whether to use a drug for cosmetic purposes. Anjan chatterjee, a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, has argued that western medicine stands on the brink of a neuro-enhancement revolution in which people will be able to improve their memory and attention through pharamacological means. Jacob Appel, a Brown University bioethicist, has raised concerns about the possibility of employers mandating such enhancement for their workers.
The neuroscience worldview
Neuroethics also encompasses the ethical issues raised by neuroscience as it affects our understanding of the world and of ourselves in the world. For example, if everything we do is physically caused by our brains, which are in turn a product of our genes and our life experiences, how can we be held responsible for our actions? The question of whether and how personal responsibility is compatible with neuroscience is a central one for neuroethics.Academic journals
Main Editor: Neil Levy, CAPPE, Melbourne; University of Oxford
Neuroethics is an international peer-reviewed journal dedicated to academic articles on the ethical, legal, political, social and philosophical issues provoked by research in the contemporary sciences of the mind, especially, but not only, neuroscience, psychiatry and psychology. The journal publishes high-quality reflections on questions raised by the sciences of the mind, and on the ways in which the sciences of the mind illuminate longstanding debates in ethics.
External links
- "NeuroPolitics", an entry on NeuroWiki
- Neuroethics Academic journal, editor: Neil Levy. Currently open access.
- Neuroethics.upenn.edu
- Public access journal articles on neuroethics from University of Pennsylvania
- The Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania
- Neuroscience, Identity and Society Seminar Series UK Further links, research papers and news can be found on the background pages.
- Neuroethics & Law Blog
- BrainEthics Blog
- http://neurobioethics.wordpress.com/NeuroBioEthics Blog
- Center for Neuroscience & Society, University of Pennsylvania
- Capital Consortium for Neuroscience: Ethical, Legal and Social Issues
- Neuroscience: Ethical, Legal and Social Issues - Third Annual Conference
- NovelTechEthics Research site with further links and relevant publications
- Neuroethics Research Unit Website of the Neuroethics Research Unit with further links and relevant publications
- neuroethics.uni-mainz.de Portal for neuroethics with a constantly updated bibliography
- National Core for Neuroethics at the University of British Columbia publications page
- The American Journal of Bioethics
- The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities
- Cognitive Neuroscience Society
- Neuroethics Society
- http://bioethics.od.nih.gov/ Bioethics Resources from the NIH]
- Virtual Mentor Ethics Journal of the American Medical Association Theme Issue: Ethical Issues in Neuroscience
- Neuroscience for Kids: Neuroethics
- The President's Council on Bioethics
- Johns Hopkins Neuroethics
Programs