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Embedding Ethics in Neural Engineering
Published in Evelyn Brister, Robert Frodeman, A Guide to Field Philosophy, 2020
By mid-summer, we realized that we would need more direct input from the neuroscience researchers if we were to have any chance of successfully integrating our ethics component with the ongoing work in neuroscience and engineering. We needed to know: (a) what the main aims of the affiliated labs and projects were; (b) what the principal investigators (PIs) saw as the most significant current and likely future ethical issues arising from their work; and (c) how they thought we could best work with them to explore those issues. With permission of the Center director, we set up an informal interview project, with our graduate students conducting hour-long interviews in person, where possible, or by video conferencing. We started by asking each PI to describe their work and then asked them to tell us about ethical issues they thought might be related to it. We had developed a list of ethical issues found in the neuroethics literature, and interviewers prompted PIs to consider these issues if they had not already come up in discussion. Finally, we asked PIs how they thought ethics engagement in the Center ought to work, offering a range of possibilities from an ethics consultation model (Cho et al. 2008) to a fully embedded humanities researcher in each lab (Fisher et al. 2006).
The Competing Identities of Neuroethics
Published in L. Syd M Johnson, Karen S. Rommelfanger, The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics, 2017
This view of neuroethics as a content field of bioethics dominated the first years of publication in neuroethics. A review found that the characterization of neuroethics as an “ethics of neuroscience” and as a “branch of bioethics” were respectively the first and fourth most common ways of describing neuroethics (Racine, 2010). More recent reviews have confirmed this focus on the ethics of neuroscience in recent literature (Leefmann et al., 2016). However, the view that neuroethics is defined by its focus on neurotechnologies has sparked profound debates, notably about the alignment or even the complicity of neuroethics with the agenda of neuroscience research and technology (Vidal, 2009; Vidal and Piperberg, 2017; De Vries, 2007; Parens and Johnston, 2006; Parens and Johnston, 2007).
Central nervous system
Published in Lisa Jean Moore, Monica J. Casper, The Body, 2014
Lisa Jean Moore, Monica J. Casper
Consistent with the rise of the “neuro,” we have seen the emergence of neuroethics, a field devoted to examining the ethical, legal, and social aspects of neuroscience (Roskies 2002). We’ve also witnessed the emergence of neurogenetics, which looks at the role of genes, genetics, and the human genome in the nervous system (Simón-Sánchez and Singleton 2008). Neurolinguistics explores the ways in which language is developed through neural processes; neuroaesthetics looks at the neural basis of how we look at and appreciate art and other visual media; neuropsychology explores the underlying neural basis of psychological behavior; and neurosociology examines how biological processes and neural networks shape social life (Franks 2007).
“They Are Invasive in Different Ways.”: Stakeholders’ Perceptions of the Invasiveness of Psychiatric Electroceutical Interventions
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2023
Robyn Bluhm, Marissa Cortright, Eric D. Achtyes, Laura Y. Cabrera
Ethical evaluations of emerging medical neurotechnologies routinely distinguish between invasive and noninvasive interventions, noting that technologies in the former category present risks not posed by those in the latter (Bianchi et al. 2018; Emerging Issues Taskforce, International Neuroethics Society 2019; Hendriks et al. 2019). Invasive neurotechnologies include deep brain stimulation (DBS), which involves the surgical implantation of an electrode in the brain to stimulate neural activity in a target area. An example of a neurotechnology regarded as noninvasive is transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), which uses a device that remains external to the body (specifically, one that is placed on the head) and that uses an electromagnetic field to alter brain activity. These examples illustrate that the neuroethics literature is following the “traditional” medical definition of invasiveness, which counts interventions as invasive if they involve surgically cutting into the body or inserting something into the body (Davis and van Koningsbruggen 2013; National Cancer Institute 2020; PubMed 1966; Rudnick 2011).
On the Relevance of Experimental Philosophy to Neuroethics
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2022
In recent years, we have seen an explosion of scholarship within the field of neuroethics – a subdiscipline of bioethics concerned with the ethical challenges raised by advances in neuroscience and the development of new neurotechnologies. While some, such as Parens and Johnston (2007), have challenged the idea that neuroethics is a unique sub-discipline with its own special problems, we see neuroethics as made importantly distinct from the general questions of bioethics through the complex relationship of our brains to our personal identity, making us who we are. New neurotechnologies can thus not only substantially improve wellbeing, but radically change our cognitive limitations and even our personalities themselves. It is therefore unsurprising that much of neuroethics is concerned with determining the ethical challenges new technologies raise for considerations such as autonomy, privacy, and equality, and how to weigh these against one another.
Are Neuroethicists Confident That the Neural Device Industry Incorporate Ethical Concerns into the Design Process? Is Everything for Sale Even Highly Sensitive Data?
Published in AJOB Neuroscience, 2022
In their article “Neuroethics inside and out: A comparative survey of neural device industry representatives and the general public on ethical issues and principles in neurotechnology,” MacDuffie et al. (2022) sought to explore attitudes toward ethical challenges related to neural devices in two groups of stakeholders—members of the neural device industry and members of the public. In their survey, they found a large degree of consistency between the two groups in their attitudes toward the ethical topic areas. Although they presented the limitations of their study, yet surprisingly both the neural device industry and the public were confident that the industry would incorporate ethical concerns in the design process and both the public, and the industry did not rule out the option of selling personal brain data to a company. Furthermore, the survey explored attitudes to both medical and non-medical neural devices although the authors mentioned that their focus is on neurotechnology developed for medical use, approved, and regulated by the FDA. This peer commentary does not aim to hinder or prohibit technological innovation or deprive the society of neural devices' benefits but aims to emphasize that neuroethicists role is to present the evidence when attitudes contradict present knowledge (especially in direct-to-consumer neural devices) and to advise the public and policymakers about the future impact of the abovementioned choices.