Psychology
Ethics of Neuroscience
The ethics of neuroscience refers to the moral principles and guidelines that govern the conduct of research and practice in the field of neuroscience. This includes considerations of informed consent, privacy, and the responsible use of emerging technologies such as brain imaging and neuroenhancement. Ethical considerations are crucial in ensuring the well-being of research participants and the responsible advancement of neuroscience knowledge and applications.
Written by Perlego with AI-assistance
Related key terms
1 of 5
6 Key excerpts on "Ethics of Neuroscience"
eBook - PDFEthics and Mental Health
The Patient, Profession and Community
- Michael Robertson, Garry Walter(Authors)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- CRC Press(Publisher)
The management of depression, at the heart of mental healthcare, has equally disappointed in the aftermath of the decade of the brain. Far from merely confirming 1990s-era assumptions about treatment efficacy of antidepressants, the Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) 4 findings paint an even bleaker picture of the actual benefit of these drugs. Regardless of the poor return on investment in neuroscience in the two decades from the presidential proclamation, the ongoing expectations of neuroscience progress has created a novel discourse in bioethics, the field of neuroethics. 5 It is unclear when the term neuroethics appeared or to whom it can be attributed. As with most interdisciplinary fields, neuroethics has evolved through a number of disciplines including neurology, cognitive neuroscience, computer science, neuroimaging, neurophysiology, and psychiatry. The most simple definition of the field of neuroethics is that it is the neuroscience of ethics and the Ethics of Neuroscience. If one surveys the literature in the field of neuroethics, a number of themes emerge, highlighting different questions from different disciplinary perspectives: 148 Psychiatric Ethics in the Light of Neuroscience 1. How do putative neurological models of human experience such as emotion, selfhood, agency, and intentionality refine understanding of common ethical dilemmas, such as responsibility, in clinical and medicolegal settings? 2. What are the implications for the Self of observations of the alteration of brain structure and function after treatment of mental illness? 3. What are the dilemmas raised by progress in neuroimaging and genetics, particularly in the realm of the diagnosis and classification of psychiatric disorders? 4. What are the implications of establishing a neurological basis for moral deliberation and action? 5.
eBook - ePubBioethics
An Anthology
- Udo Schüklenk, Peter Singer, Udo Schüklenk, Peter Singer(Authors)
- 2021(Publication Date)
- Wiley-Blackwell(Publisher)
In one central respect, however, neuroethics is significantly different to bioethics in its scope and ambitions. Whereas bioethics could be described as applying the tools of philosophers to a new set of issues, neuroethics is as much concerned with the nature of the tools it uses as with the problems to which it seeks to apply them. Since the tools of philosophers are cognitive, and the sciences of the mind are concerned with the nature of cognition (broadly understood), the sciences of the mind are concerned with our tools: with their nature, their strengths and weaknesses and with their reliability. Hence the neuroethicist is adrift on Neurath’s boat to an even greater extent than most philosophers: she must address first‐order ethical issues using tools whose very reliability is one of her concernsGiven the dual focus of neuroethics, on first‐order ethical questions arising from the sciences of the mind, and on the tools the neuroethicist uses in addressing these questions, neuroethics might be said to have two distinct branches. Roskies calls these two branches the Ethics of Neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. The Ethics of Neuroscience is concerned with first‐order ethical issues; the neuroscience of ethics with normative ethics, meta‐ethics and moral psychology insofar as these branches of philosophy are illuminated by the sciences of the mind.The Ethics of Neuroscience
The sciences of the mind offer us a range of apparently unprecedented powers to intervene in the mind of human beings, some actual, some just over the horizon, and some very distant (it is a matter of lively dispute which technologies are distant and which imminent). These powers arouse a great deal of unease in many people, prompting philosophers to reflect upon the permissibility of their use. These actual or potential powers include the ability to enhance cognition, to modify memories and emotions, and to control or insert beliefs.1 Each of these has been the focus of sustained ethical reflection. For reasons of space, I shall consider only the first two topics (see Levy, Neuroethics for discussions of the ability to control or insert beliefs).Memory Modification and Enhancement
Existing techniques to modify memories are relatively crude and weak. These techniques have been developed with therapeutic goals in mind: either to slow the progress of dementia, in the case of techniques that might improve memory, or to treat post‐traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in the case of techniques aimed at weakening specific memories.
eBook - ePub- Michele Farisco(Author)
- 2023(Publication Date)
- Wiley-ISTE(Publisher)
Neuroethical concerns related to the plausible effect on the use of neuroscience and neurotechnology in the human essence are not new, especially in diverse areas of medicine such as anesthesiology, neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry, and more recently under the umbrella of “neurolaw” and “neurorights”. For instance, in medicine, many neuroethical concerns might be labeled as moral or medical dilemmas and are expected to be addressed through the ontological duties of medicine and/or bioethics
eBook - ePub- James L. Bernat, Richard Beresford(Authors)
- 2014(Publication Date)
- Elsevier(Publisher)
Eijkholt et al., 2012 ). FESTNIs are scanned prior to the administration of medication in order to control for the confounding effects of treatment. By concentrating on this program of research, we capture the distinctive ethical challenges associated with neuroimaging research overall, and foreground the issues particular to neuroimaging research involving FESTNIs that have yet to receive sufficient attention in the literature. We highlight assessment of risks and burdens, including risks associated with treatment delays and incidental findings; assessment of benefit, including direct benefit, social value, and scientific quality; subject selection; justice questions related to responsiveness and poststudy access; and, finally, issues related to consent and capacity.Keywords
clinical neuroscience; ethics; neuroethics; neuroimaging; neurology; research ethicsIntroduction
Challenges common to research ethics in the global arena are addressed by guidance offered by the Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects (Common Rule) (45 CFR 46) in the United States, by the Tri-council Policy (2) in Canada, by the Helsinki Agreement in Europe, and others. They are designed to protect participants in research studies by raising questions, such as: Does study participation represent a favorable balance of risks and benefits? Will the selection of subjects be fair? Will the consent of participants be informed and voluntary?These familiar challenges often manifest in unexpected ways in complex paradigms such as neuroimaging studies, due to the multidimensionality of the subject matter and the relative novelty of the technologies involved. Neuroimaging research also raises a number of ethical issues that are, if not unique to neuroimaging, especially prominent in this context. For example, challenges related to incidental findings are clearly of this kind. Issues related to hype are another, due to the unbridled enthusiasm with which neuroimaging technologies have been embraced by both the scientific community and the public. In this chapter, we use the special features of neuroimaging to illustrate research ethics issues for the neurologic sciences, and focus on one particularly compelling case: studies involving first-episode schizophrenic treatment-naïve individuals (FESTNIs) (Eijkholt et al., 2012
- Martyn Pickersgill, Ira Van Keulen, Martyn Pickersgill, Ira Van Keulen, Barbara Katz Rothman(Authors)
- 2011(Publication Date)
- Emerald Group Publishing Limited(Publisher)
In the inaugural issue of the journal Neuroethics , Neil Levy asserts that the work terrain of the new field is one not already occupied by bioethics: ‘‘neuroethics questions, going to the very heart of what it means to be a human being, have no real analogue in bioethics’’ ( Levy, 2008, p. 2 ). Levy’s claim about the special nature of the brain and the need for a separate area of ethical inquiry mirrors arguments made by geneticists and genethicists a decade before. In 1998, Nobel laureate James Watson, who helped established the Human Genome Project, boldly stated, ‘‘We used to think out fate was in the stars. Now we know, in large measure, our fate is in our genes’’ (quoted in Jaroff, 1989, p. 67 ). Neuroethicists are cognizant of those claims and they are also aware that disappointing returns on the investment made in genetic therapies dampened this early enthusiasm about the value of the HGP ( Wade, 2010 ). Most notably, the failure of the HGP to deliver practical therapies rendered much of the speculative work of genethicists useless. In an effort to ward off unfavorable comparisons to genetics and genethics, neuroethicist Martha Farah (2005, p. 34) asserts the greater importance of neuroscience: ‘‘like the field of genetics, neuroscience concerns the biological foundations of who we are, of our essence. The relation of self to brain is, if anything, more direct than that of self to genome.’’ Judy Illes and Eric Racine (2005) also distance themselves from genetics by asserting the closer connection between brain and self than genes and self. Investments in genetics and genethics may have proved unwise, these neuroethicists argue, but studies of the brain will prove worthy. Neuroethicists highlight the superior promise of neuroscience because, when it comes to finding funding for their work, neuroethicists want to borrow a page from genethics.
- Larry Alexander, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan, Larry Alexander, Kimberly Kessler Ferzan(Authors)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Palgrave Macmillan(Publisher)
Part XIX Neuroscience
Passage contains an image © The Author(s) 2019Begin AbstractL. Alexander, K. K. Ferzan (eds.)The Palgrave Handbook of Applied Ethics and the Criminal Law https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-22811-8_2020. Neuroscience and Criminal Law: Perils and Promises
End AbstractStephen J. Morse1(1) University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USAThis chapter addresses the potential contributions of neuroscience to criminal justice decision-making and policy, with special emphasis on criminal responsibility. The neurosciences in question are the behavioral neurosciences, such as cognitive, affective, and social neuroscience, because these are the types of neuroscience most relevant to law. There have been major advances in these fields since the beginning of the present century when non-invasive functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI ) to investigate brain function became widely available for research. The central question for this chapter is whether the neuroscience is relevant to criminal justice. The general conclusion is that it is scarcely useful at present but may become more relevant as the science progresses.Many readers of this chapter may not be lawyers, so the chapter begins with a brief explanation of the meaning of criminal responsibility that is used throughout. It then speculates about the source of claims for the positive influence of neuroscience. The next section discusses the scientific status of behavioral neuroscience. Then it addresses two radical challenges to current conceptions of criminal responsibility that neuroscience allegedly poses: determinism and the death of agency. The question of the specific relevance of neuroscience to criminal law doctrine, practice, and institutions is considered next. This is followed by a discussion of how neuroscience evidence is being used in criminal cases in five different countries, including the United States. The penultimate section points to some areas warranting modest optimism. A brief conclusion follows.
Index pages curate the most relevant extracts from our library of academic textbooks. They’ve been created using an in-house natural language model (NLM), each adding context and meaning to key research topics.
