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An early-and necessary-flight of the owl of Minerva: neuroscience, neurotechnology, human socio-cultural boundaries, and the importance of neuroethics

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... The human being is a 'historicized' actor, interacting with a circumstantial context and responding to a surrounding contingent culture, which affects the "neurocognitive-emotional-environmental" dimensions of this interaction, and shapes the expression of the ways that information, knowledge, and tools are developed and used. 18 Neuroethics' second tradition examines the ways that neuroscientific techniques and technologies are used, queries the modes through which neuroscientific findings are applied, and addresses the ethical and socio-legal issues, questions and problems generated by neuroscientific research and its applications in medicine, public life, and global relations. 5,6,11,12,13,14 While methodologically derived and linked to basic and clinical bioethics, we posit that neuroethics can focus on unique questions and problems generated by studies of the brain and consciousness relating to any ethical inquiry, including persistent "hard problems" inherent to neuroscience, and the unknowns surrounding any applications of neuroscientific techniques and tools affecting humans and the human predicament. ...
... In short, neuroethics can address "what it means to be a thinking being", 30 and what it means to use neuroscience to investigate and affect the nature of being human. 13,14,18,[31][32][33] Its broad and interdisciplinary applications can foster a systematic inter-disciplinarity, and an ability to move beyond limitations of Western philosophy and such philosophies' characteristic ethical concerns. 17 We posit that common ground can be identified in a broadly naturalistic approach informing both bioethics and neuroethics, and the underlying conviction that social and moral phenomena are helpfully illuminated by the biological and behavioral sciences. ...
... More specifically, neuroethical theorizing appreciates 1) the role for neuroscience as an objective collection of information, tools, and capabilities; 2) the relatively subjective meanings and employments of neuroscientific information and techniques in various sociocultural settings; and 3) the potential ways for neuroS/T to exert socio-cultural influence, and be affected in turn by cultural forces (inclusive of individual and community needs, desires, economics, and politics). 15,18,31,32,37 By addressing what Rawls 28 described as "background theories"-that is, a "theory of persons" and a "theory of the role of morality in society"a narrower,local perspective can be extended to a wide (and potentially international) reflective equilibrium for neuroethical conclusions. That equilibrium is just that, a temporary stability that allows for potential re-engagement, modification, or revision of extant principles based upon both particularities of circumstance and iteratively newer knowledge. ...
... More generally, neuroethics is usefully central to inquiries into the potential wider impacts of modified mind/brain capacities and practices on all other moral, social, economic, legal, political, cultural, (etc.) realms of life [3,5,13,31]. ...
... Again, established ethical systems will claim priority here, offering to stock neuroethics with their principles, but such principles can be freely accepted or declined as appropriate. Unlike philosophies that prefer to isolate objective morality and its supposedly rational basis from conventional ethics in its cultural settings, we reserve for neuroethics a meta-ethical stance that takes the cognitive and social sciences seriously in their investigations of the embodied human being embedded within socio-cultural environments [3,4,31]. This opportunity might first appear like a return to the option of socio-cultural conventionality, but, starting from science in fact opens the possibility for a far more objective foundation for neuroethics than the 'objectivity' promised by older ethical theories. ...
... By contrast, in practical application, neuroethics is both more specific and broader than medical ethics, because neuroethics must consider how and why individuals, nonstate organizations, and governments will be utilizing brain/mind modifications for pursuing the widest imaginable variety of goals from pleasure to violence, both within countries and across international borders [3,13,31,64]. As for undertaking principled ethics, neuroethics will partially transcend medical ethics, precisely because neuroethics must regard modifications to the brain/mind made for any reason within and across cultural or political boundaries, including transitions to future iterations of humans, cultures, and/or beings yet to emerge. ...
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Neuroethics applies cognitive neuroscience for prescribing alterations to conceptions of self and society, and for prescriptively judging the ethical applications of neurotechnologies. Plentiful normative premises are available to ground such prescriptivity, however prescriptive neuroethics may remain fragmented by social conventions, cultural ideologies, and ethical theories. Herein we offer that an objectively principled neuroethics for international relevance requires a new meta-ethics: understanding how morality works, and how humans manage and improve morality, as objectively based on the brain and social sciences. This new meta-ethics will simultaneously equip neuroethics for evaluating and revising older cultural ideologies and ethical theories, and direct neuroethics towards scientifically valid views of encultured humans intelligently managing moralities. Bypassing absolutism, cultural essentialisms, and unrealistic ethical philosophies, neuroethics arrives at a small set of principles about proper human flourishing that are more culturally inclusive and cosmopolitan in spirit. This cosmopolitanism in turn suggests augmentations to traditional medical ethics in the form of four principled guidelines for international consideration: Self-creativity, Non-obsolescence, Empowerment, and Citizenship. neuroscience, prescriptive neuroethics, principled neuroethics, cultural pluralism, meta-ethics, cosmopolitanism, medical ethics.
... The intersections of neuroscience, neurotechnology, and society raise challenging ethical questions about how related developments may be perceived and utilized across cultures. The field of neuroethics addresses the ethical and legal issues of these innovations and their wideranging implications in the public sphere [1]. Whether defined as global [2], cosmopolitan [3], or pluralistic, as Giordano and Benedikter state, "neuroethics must be international, multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary, and not simply bound to philosophical dogma or defined by western ethical discourse" [1]. ...
... The field of neuroethics addresses the ethical and legal issues of these innovations and their wideranging implications in the public sphere [1]. Whether defined as global [2], cosmopolitan [3], or pluralistic, as Giordano and Benedikter state, "neuroethics must be international, multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary, and not simply bound to philosophical dogma or defined by western ethical discourse" [1]. ...
... Open dialogue and deliberation on the benefits and harms of community confidentiality are essential both to ensure adequate protections and to foster self-determination through the evolving and adaptable principals of OCAP. Further, attention to and understanding of culture and the imperative role of a cultural community in the evolution of the research process are fundamental to conducting culturally-oriented research in neuroscience, and for ensuring that research is both inclusive and culturally relevant [1]. This type of community-based research must foster an approach to neuroethics that remains responsive, pluralistic and adaptable to the requirements of the community. ...
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The meaningful consideration of cultural practices, values and beliefs is a necessary component in the effective translation of advancements in neuroscience to clinical practice and public discourse. Society's immense investment in biomedical science and technology, in conjunction with an increasingly diverse socio-cultural landscape, necessitates the study of how potential discoveries in neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer disease are perceived and utilized across cultures. Building on the work of neuroscientists, ethicists and philosophers, we argue that the growing field of neuroethics provides a pragmatic and constructive pathway to guide advancements in neuroscience in a manner that is culturally nuanced and relevant. Here we review a case study of one issue in culturally oriented neuroscience research where it is evident that traditional research ethics must be broadened and the values and needs of diverse populations considered for meaningful and relevant research practices. A global approach to neuroethics has the potential to furnish critical engagement with cultural considerations of advancements in neuroscience.
... The first can be somewhat colloquially described as "..the neuroscience of ethics" [1]. Rather, we offer that a more apt definition of this branch of neuroethics would be: studies of the putative neural substrates and mechanisms involved in proto-moral and moral cognition and behaviors [2][3][4][5]. The second "tradition" addresses the ethico-legal and social issues fostered by the use of neuroscience and neurotechnologies in research, medical practice, or public life. ...
... Such findings have implications for consideration of how moral decisions are made and morally-relevant acts are tendered (e.g.-"Good Samaritan" acts, "by-stander effects", etc.), and prompt further inquiry to how patterns of neural activity may affect types and extent of behaviors in morally-relevant situations, and if and how such patterns of activity are stable, modifiable, and/or learned. Yet, we also advocate prudence in interpretation of these and related findings [2][3][4][7][8][9], as the limitations of fMRI, like any neurotechnology, must be appreciated (see van Meter [71] for overview). ...
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There appears to be an inconsistency in experimental paradigms used in fMRI research on moral judgments. As stimuli, moral dilemmas or moral statements/ pictures that induce emotional reactions are usually employed; a main difference between these stimuli is the perspective of the participants reflecting first-person (moral dilemmas) or third-person perspective (moral reactions). The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to investigate the neural correlates of moral judgments in either first- or third-person perspective. Our results indicate that different neural mechanisms appear to be involved in these perspectives. Although conjunction analysis revealed common activation in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, third person-perspective elicited unique activations in hippocampus and visual cortex. The common activation can be explained by the role the anterior medial prefrontal cortex may play in integrating different information types and also by its involvement in theory of mind. Our results also indicate that the so-called "actor-observer bias" affects moral evaluation in the third-person perspective, possibly due to the involvement of the hippocampus. We suggest two possible ways in which the hippocampus may support the process of moral judgment: by the engagement of episodic memory and its role in understanding the behaviors and emotions of others. We posit that these findings demonstrate that first or third person perspectives in moral cognition involve distinct neural processes, that are important to different aspects of moral judgments. These results are important to a deepened understanding of neural correlates of moral cognition-the so-called "first tradition" of neuroethics, with the caveat that any results must be interpreted and employed with prudence, so as to heed neuroethics "second tradition" that sustains the pragmatic evaluation of outcomes, capabilities and limitations of neuroscientific techniques and technologies.
... The first can be somewhat colloquially described as " ..the neuroscience of ethics " [1]. Rather, we offer that a more apt definition of this branch of neuroethics would be: studies of the putative neural substrates and mechanisms involved in proto-moral and moral cognition and behaviors2345. The second " tradition " addresses the ethico-legal and social issues fostered by the use of neuroscience and neurotechnologies in research, medical practice, or public life. ...
... Such findings have implications for consideration of how moral decisions are made and morally-relevant acts are tendered (e.g.- " Good Samaritan " acts, " by-stander effects " , etc.), and prompt further inquiry to how patterns of neural activity may affect types and extent of behaviors in morally-relevant situations, and if and how such patterns of activity are stable, modifiable, and/or learned. Yet, we also advocate prudence in interpretation of these and related findings234789, as the limitations of fMRI, like any neurotechnology, must be appreciated (see van Meter [71] for overview). This encourages engagement of neuroethics' second tradition, namely, an analysis of the ways that neuroscience and neurotechnology are, can, and should be employed to gain understanding of cognitions, emotions and behaviors, and how such information is used (in medicine, law and the public sphere). ...
Data
Background: There appears to be an inconsistency in experimental paradigms used in fMRI research on moral judgments. As stimuli, moral dilemmas or moral statements/ pictures that induce emotional reactions are usually employed; a main difference between these stimuli is the perspective of the participants reflecting first-person (moral dilemmas) or third-person perspective (moral reactions). The present study employed functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in order to investigate the neural correlates of moral judgments in either first-or third-person perspective. Results: Our results indicate that different neural mechanisms appear to be involved in these perspectives. Although conjunction analysis revealed common activation in the anterior medial prefrontal cortex, third person-perspective elicited unique activations in hippocampus and visual cortex. The common activation can be explained by the role the anterior medial prefrontal cortex may play in integrating different information types and also by its involvement in theory of mind. Our results also indicate that the so-called "actor-observer bias" affects moral evaluation in the third-person perspective, possibly due to the involvement of the hippocampus. We suggest two possible ways in which the hippocampus may support the process of moral judgment: by the engagement of episodic memory and its role in understanding the behaviors and emotions of others. Conclusion: We posit that these findings demonstrate that first or third person perspectives in moral cognition involve distinct neural processes, that are important to different aspects of moral judgments. These results are important to a deepened understanding of neural correlates of moral cognition—the so-called "first tradition" of neuroethics, with the caveat that any results must be interpreted and employed with prudence, so as to heed neuroethics "second tradition" that sustains the pragmatic evaluation of outcomes, capabilities and limitations of neuroscientific techniques and technologies.
... These latter domains can be disconnected from-if not discordant with-considerations for employing science and technology in ways that best meet humanitarian needs' (Giordano and Benedikter 2012: 3). Currently organisational neuroscience makes no mention of any broader political or economic context despite an 'academicindustrial complex' dedicated to neuroscience and with fast-growing economic capital (Giordano and Benedikter 2012). More broadly, a 'funding effect' (Krimsky 2003) is evidence of an intertwining of commerce and academia, wherein the notion of 'disinterestedness' is on the wane, with a lack of objectivity, if not bias, a potential consequence of the practice of mixing commerce with science. ...
Chapter
In this chapter, a number of key ethical issues associated with the recent emergence of the related fields of neuromarketing and sensory marketing are reviewed. Now that these new techniques are really starting to show their predictive mettle relative to other, more traditional, consumer psychology/behavioural testing approaches to marketing, questions around the ethics of stimulating the brain’s “buy button” start to raise their head. Here, I want to question what exactly is so special, and so worrying, about “looking inside the mind of the consumer”. I will argue that public fears around the dangers of neuromarketing have been overblown, at least up until the present time and, as far as I can see, for the foreseeable future. I do, though, want to raise a number of concerns around the growing influence of sensory marketing on our behaviour, focusing, in particular, on the world of food and drink marketing. Ultimately, I believe that the consumer of tomorrow may well have much to fear from the emerging neuroscience-inspired approaches to sensory marketing. In fact, before too long, we may all start to find ourselves being sensorially “nudged” into a range of less healthy food behaviours. As such, establishing clear ethical guidelines will, I believe, become an increasingly important issue for those working in the field.
... These latter domains can be disconnected from-if not discordant with-considerations for employing science and technology in ways that best meet humanitarian needs' (Giordano and Benedikter 2012: 3). Currently organisational neuroscience makes no mention of any broader political or economic context despite an 'academicindustrial complex' dedicated to neuroscience and with fast-growing economic capital (Giordano and Benedikter 2012). More broadly, a 'funding effect' (Krimsky 2003) is evidence of an intertwining of commerce and academia, wherein the notion of 'disinterestedness' is on the wane, with a lack of objectivity, if not bias, a potential consequence of the practice of mixing commerce with science. ...
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In this chapter, we offer a content analysis of top-tier management journals to examine the extent to which advocates of neuroscience in management pay heed to the ethical ramifications of their work. Based upon our analysis, we are able to robustly refute the claim by Butler and colleagues (Hum Relat 70:1171–1190, 2017) that Lindebaum’s (Hum Relat 69(3):537–50, 2016) concerns about the lack of ethical concerns in the proliferation and application of neuroscientific ideas and measurements are basically much ado about nothing. By way of this content analysis, we advance the debate on the ethical ramifications of applying neuroscience in management by demonstrating (1) which ethical issues are recognised and (2) which ones are not. Doing so has the potential to open up new directions in studying the ethical and practical ramifications of neuroscience in and around workplaces.
... If the agenda is to comprehend the person and the mind through understanding the brain, will anything valuable be overlooked? Perhaps, but what we believe cannot-nor should not-be overlooked is the way that assigning the study of morality to neuroscience cannot guarantee that applications of neuroscience will be ethical (Giordano and Benedikter 2012). ...
... As for naturalistic neuroethics, it must never lose sight of the personal self that bears moral worth and pursues moral ends. Here, it is important to assert that neuroscience-and neuroethics-must appreciate the functions of brains that are embodied in organisms that are embedded in their ecologies, inclusive of culture and religious traditions and practices [27]. In this way, naturalistic neuroethics will be indebted to ethical wisdom conveyed by cultural and religious heritages. ...
... More broadly, brain training constitutes part of the growing 'brain-industrial complex', driven in part by 'soft' commercialization trends (Giordano, 2011;Thornton, 2011a;Martin, 2015). Attached claims to 'soft', consumer-friendly applications come with wildly varying degrees of plausibility, generating new areas where regulatory oversight is required (Caulfield and Ogbogu, 2008;Maslen et al., 2014). ...
Article
Through normative appeals of cognitive enhancement, the brain has become a site of both promise and peril. Displaying oneself as ethically sound may now include showing requisite care for cognitive capacities. Moreover, enhancing our cognitive reserves is framed as aspirational means of averting neurodegenerative disease and neoliberal precarity. Such demanding labours of self-care warrant close scrutiny. Promissory discourses proclaim our ‘neuroplasticity’, encouraging subjects to work on endlessly improvable functional capacities that hold labour market value. Yet a ‘fun morality’ is equally prevalent in today’s experiential economies. Neuro-enhancement is thus sold not as an ascetic chore, but an ecstatic potential. Hope, fear, pleasure, and ethical conduct are, therefore, all closely entwined in the ‘virtuous play’ of ‘brain training’, where commercial entities use digital platforms for game-based tasks designed to enhance cognitive abilities. These services are typically promoted through appeals to our dutiful biocitizenship. This type of virtuous play is increasingly the means by which subjects produce themselves as simultaneously pleasure-seeking, productive, and resoundingly ‘well’. However, this understanding of virtuosity is often narrowly derived—reduced to ‘active ageing’, corporate-style ‘neurohacking’, and ‘brain profiles’—that threaten to foreclose other ways of imagining well-being. In failing to recognize the neoliberal underpinnings of virtuous play we entrench burdensome attachments to emerging modes of personal enhancement. Against these seductive appeals of combining pleasure with self-improvement, we must cultivate a critical reflexivity regarding exactly how ‘enhancement’ is conceived, opening room for lines of possibility outside of currently dominant frameworks.
... Extending the boundaries of what is Defining Contexts of Neurocognitive (Performance) Enhancements The avant garde nature of brain sciences is evidently generating a host of unknowns: new questions about the brain; unpredictable consequences to novel neuroscientific techniques and technologies; and uncertainties about side effects of such interventions on the nervous system, the organism in which that nervous system is embodied, and the ecology (i.e., environment, society, culture) in which these embodied organisms are embedded and function. 34 However, we argue that this need not compromise current and/or future research enterprises. To the contrary; given these unknowns, we believe that continued research (inclusive of examination and re-evaluation of uses in real-world practice) is the only way to allow more thorough, detailed insight and a growing understanding of potential benefits, burdens, risks, and harms that such interventions may incur. ...
... The claims, products, and services of these commercial enterprises come with wildly varying degrees of efficacy and plausibility, along with generating new areas where regulatory and ethical oversight is required (Caulfield and Ogbogu, 2008). In any case, market analysts predict great capital potential in the new 'brain-industrial complex' (Duncan, 2008; see also Giordano, 2011). ...
Thesis
This thesis seeks to trace the escalating shift from mind to brain and resulting changes in understandings of care for the self, emergent in part through growing influence of neuroethics and related calls for ‘neuro-enhancement’ of the ethical subject. This study – propelled largely through a critical discourse analysis of recent disciplinary output and public engagement – is particularly interested in observing the increasing confidence of neuroscience-informed perspectives on humanity, with announcements that we are witnessing a so-called ‘Second Enlightenment’. Such calls for a new ontology of ethics, I argue, amounts to overly ‘expansive’ claims funnelled through increasingly ‘intensive’ gazes. Within the rise of neuroscience more broadly, empirical neuroethics proclaims its epistemic privilege with respect to tracing our moral selfhood, in part through its location of measures of the ethical subject within functionally ascribed activity traced at the neurological level. Once elusive properties of conduct and wellbeing are now sought to be registered in the common currency of this synaptic ledger, exclusively overseen by specialists in this new field of expertise. The thesis then explores the subsequent adoption of this new empirical currency by those practicing a ‘hard’ transhumanism. Advocates of this position urge us to embrace methods of cognitive and moral ‘enhancement,’ lest we find ourselves unfit for the future in a world of ever-escalating risk. However, I argue that dominant framings of care of the self within neuroethics tend to be narrowly construed. I suggest that by failing to recognise the socio-historical contingencies of their claims, neuroethicists risk producing rigid, stultifying, and perhaps even self-defeating constructs of the ideal citizen. The personal ethos advanced by these new technologies of the self creates new forms of personal responsibility, which, consistent with neoliberal ideals of progress, involves a perpetual labour upon one's brain as a mode of accumulation strategy. This threatens to become a cruel labour that ultimately jars with our eventual and inevitable neurodegeneration. In response to this emerging ethos, I attempt to go beyond the constraints of a merely critical discourse to enable a more productive, if cautious, engagement with the claims of the new, applied neuro-disciplines. I consider what kind of differently expansive framing of subjectivity might be better suited to the present, compared with the ‘hyper-cognitive’ subject of certain ‘hard’ neuroscientific and neuroethical discourses. Contributing to the growing interest in the social sciences in the broad movement of ‘neurodiversity’, I turn to fictional accounts of dementia to see what might be learned from these literary sources. I argue that these literary explorations of subjectivity open up novel ways of reconceiving our relation to our neurology, and thus may play an important role in reimagining the self in a manner adequate to the complexity, urgency, and promise of our times. Though grounded primarily within the field of the sociology of science and technology, this thesis also draws extensively on related thought in poststructuralist critical and literary theory, while also maintaining an accessibility acutely attuned to the growing importance of interdisciplinary exchange.
... The field of neuroethics is not prepared or equipped to undertake these goals in isolation, and only well-funded, interdisciplinary investigations can depict how such goals and objectives can and should be realistically attained. [8][9][10] Thus, while President Obama has dedicated significant funding to the BRAIN initiative, and tasked the PCSBI with studying and making recommendations about ethical issues spawned by this initiative, we opine that broader funding and an expanded research portfolio in neuroethics are required. It is indeed noteworthy that the federal agencies receiving BRAIN initiative funding to date (i.e., DARPA, NIH) each consult intramural groups specifically devoted to addressing neuroethical issues. ...
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The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (PCSBI) released the second volume of its Gray Matters report in March 2015 to address neuroethical, legal, and social issues arising in and from efforts of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative. In concert with recommendations made in the Gray Matters volumes, we herein offer what we believe to be four crucial—and actionable—goals for neuroethics: First, neuroethics should be dedicated to evaluating the validity and value of current and proposed approaches to assessing and altering the structure and functions of the brain. Second, neuroethical tools and methods must be developed to interpret, and enable sound use of neuroscientific information, techniques, and technologies in biomedical research and clinical practice. Third, neuroethics should use newly emerging neuroscientific findings to inform common conceptions and definitions of the normal structure and functions of the brain, and how the brain should be treated to recover or improve its functional capacities. Fourth, neuroethics should be prominently featured in the education and training of researchers and clinicians, so as to enable more pragmatic and ethically prudent capability in laboratory and clinical settings, as well as policy-and public-oriented fields, organizations, and agencies.
... It can be entertaining to speculate upon the trajectories that brain science and its technologies will assume, and instructional to engage ethical thought experiments based upon fictional accounts. But we argue that it is imprudent to be unprepared for those neuroscientific developments that can, and likely will occur in the near future [32], and in this light, advance the discourse that we have herein initiated. It is the task of neuroethical analysis to illuminate and question these transformative processes and to help to envision possibilities for meaningful life within the expanding boundaries of science, technology and the human condition. ...
... It can be entertaining to speculate upon the trajectories that brain science and its technologies will assume, and instructional to engage ethical thought experiments based upon fictional accounts. But we argue that it is imprudent to be unprepared for those neuroscientific developments that can, and likely will occur in the near future [32], and in this light, advance the discourse that we have herein initiated. It is the task of neuroethical analysis to illuminate and question these transformative processes and to help to envision possibilities for meaningful life within the expanding boundaries of science, technology and the human condition. ...
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The possibility of a human head transplant poses unprecedented philosophical and neuroethical questions. Principal among them are the personal identity of the resultant individual, her metaphysical and social status: Who will she be and how should the “new” person be treated - morally, legally and socially - given that she incorporates characteristics of two distinct, previously unrelated individuals, and possess both old and new physical, psychological, and social experiences that would not have been available without the transplant? We contend that this situation challenges linguistic conventions and conceptual binaries (“part-whole”), and calls into question the major philosophical approaches to personal identity: animalism and reductionism. We examine these views critically vis-a-vis head transplantation and conclude that they fail to provide an adequate account of the identity of the resultant individual because both neglect the key role of embodiment for personal identity. We maintain that embodiment is central to personal identity and a radical alteration of the body will also radically alter that person, making her a different person. Consequently, a human head transplant will result in an individual partly continuous with the head/brain (in terms of connected memories and mental events), and partly continuous with the body donor (in terms of the inputs and regulatory patterns afforded by the structure and functions of the nervous system, and the self-image of this new embodiment). We conclude that the resultant person would be different from both the individual whose head was transplanted and the one to whose body the “new” head is attached. Keywords: Transplantation, Neuroethics, Personal identity, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Embodiment, Derek Parfit, Animalism, Reductionism, Metaphysics, Donor, Recipient, Self, Head transplant, Whole body transplant, Head-to-body transplant
... Such desires can also be fueled, at least in part, by the relative "push" of a growing technological trend-what has been regarded as a technological imperative-in neuroscience and its clinical translation and applications in neurology and psychiatry. Additionally, there is an equal, if not greater, "pulling" force exerted by increasing demand-side influences and market valuation of neurotechnology (Giordano and Benedikter 2013). On one hand, patients and the public may be seduced by the lure of new technology, and may misrepresent the potential benefits that can realistically be gained. ...
... The neuroscientific pursuit and utilization of quantitative data are especially challenging because the neural events that are the focus of investigation putatively influence or subserve those dimensions of cognition and emotions that form the subjective precepts of reality, and are operative in shaping intent and behavior. In this way, neuroscience has served as both a lens through which to examine the structure and function of neural systems, and a mirror with which to view and analyze human nature, the human condition, and human thoughts, emotions and actions within the socio-cultural, economic and political milieu (Giordano, 2011a;Giordano & Benedikter, 2012a;Benedikter & Giordano, 2011;Benedikter, Giordano, & Fitz-Gerald, 2010). ...
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History and anthropology reveal the perdurable human characteristic of attempting to create and employ some form of quantifiable representation of the qualitative aspects of life and the natural world. The recent revolution in the ability to quantify neurobiological processes through advanced neurotechnologies, and the announcement of comprehensive mapping of neuronal pathways as priorities both within the United States (e.g. the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnology, BRAIN, Initiative), and internationally (e.g. the European Union’s Human Brain Project) call forth questions about how data, both quantitative and qualitative, can and should be leveraged to sustain neuroscientific research and related applications that are ethically sound, technically viable, and socially relevant. As neuroscience evermore gains influence in medical, public, economic and political spheres, it will be important to ask (early and iteratively) what such science—as a human endeavor—seeks to achieve, and how the methods selected (whether quantitative, qualitative, or some combination thereof) may help to realize such goals. In this paper we explore potential sources of tension, alignment, and integration with respect to the quantitative and qualitative domains of neuroscientific research, its influence upon society, and the role that the field of neuroethics can—and arguably should—play in rendering balance to the use of neuroscientific knowledge as both lens into the brain, and mirror upon human thought and action. Ultimately, we propose a stance of complementarity with a view toward maximizing the benefits of both the quantitative and qualitative domains
... In short, the only way to acquire the information needed to address and (possibly) resolve extant query about the bases and effects of DBS is through additional (clinical) studies. In light of this, the question becomes whether and how DBS research-and its clinical translation-can and should be undertaken so as to counter said risks, and to maximize gains to both individuals and society (Giordano and Benedikter 2012). ...
... At very least, some form of discursive ethics will be required to engage the type of casuistic analysis necessary to appreciate and navigate both socio-culturally-based moral variability, and how this affectsand might be affected bythe use of biomedical S/T advances upon the pluralist terrain of the 21 st century world stage [8]. If, in fact, the "new global shift" produces what has been colloquially described as a "flat world with creases" (i.e., highly accessible and interacting socio-economic cultural landscapes, punctuated by the emergence of new national powers and localized pockets of distinct power-identities of smaller nations, groups, and individuals in diaspora) then a more cosmopolitan bioethics that appreciates anthropological constants and variation(s), and is sensitive to standpoint, yet open to the dialectical formulation of moral constructs, standards, and directions will be needed [5,8,9,[23][24][25]. ...
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Background The importance of strong science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education continues to grow as society, medicine, and the economy become increasingly focused and dependent upon bioscientific and technological innovation. New advances in frontier sciences (e.g., genetics, neuroscience, bio-engineering, nanoscience, cyberscience) generate ethical issues and questions regarding the use of novel technologies in medicine and public life. Discussion In light of current emphasis upon science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education (at the pre-collegiate, undergraduate, graduate, and professional levels), the pace and extent of advancements in science and biotechnology, the increasingly technological orientation and capabilities of medicine, and the ways that medicine – as profession and practice – can engage such scientific and technological power upon the multi-cultural world-stage to affect the human predicament, human condition, and perhaps nature of the human being, we argue that it is critical that science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education go beyond technical understanding and directly address ethical, legal, social, and public policy implications of new innovations. Toward this end, we propose a paradigm of integrative science, technology, ethics, and policy studies that meets these needs through early and continued educational exposure that expands extant curricula of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics programs from the high school through collegiate, graduate, medical, and post-graduate medical education. We posit a synthetic approach that elucidates the historical, current, and potential interaction of scientific and biotechnological development in addition to the ethico-legal and social issues that are important to educate and sustain the next generation of medical and biomedical professionals who can appreciate, articulate, and address the realities of scientific and biotechnological progress given the shifting architectonics of the global social milieu. Summary We assert that current trends in science, technology, medicine, and global politics dictate that these skills will be necessary to responsibly guide ethically sound employment of science, technology, and engineering advancements in medicine so as to enable more competent and humanitarian practice within an increasingly pluralistic world culture.
Chapter
Humans tend to identify the uniqueness of our brains as the cornerstone of human distinction from other animals (Chapman & Huffman, 2019). Our species has pondered what makes us us at least throughout recorded history. However, recent decades witnessed a quantum leap in capacity for real time empirical observation of living brains. At the same time, rigorous, organized, and collaborative analysis of scientific and clinical observations of human beings across the spectrum of human neurodiversity flourished (Ramachandran, 2012). Examining our brains in action allows for fascinating insights into humanity’s favorite subject; humanity itself. It also creates a profound and unprecedented responsibility for stewardship of our species alongside careful management of our impacts on environments.
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