Neuroethics

Neuroethics focuses on the ethical, legal and social implications that arise from applications of neuroscience research, knowledge and technology into medical practice and health and social policy. Neuroethics encompasses the ethics of neuroscience, and the neuroscience of ethics. It also includes ethical issues involved in other sciences and pseudosciences dealing with the mind, as well as issues related to the philosophy of mind. Some neuroethics subjects are not fundamentally different from those encountered in bioethics. Nevertheless, as neuroethics deals with the human brain, which is the organ of the mind, it illuminates in unprecedented ways traditional philosophical problems, such as the nature of free will, moral responsibility, self-deception, and person identity.

Examples of neuroethics topics include the issue of brain enhancement and "life-style" drugs, the administration of psychopharmaceuticals to children, or the effects of brain surgery on personality. The neuroscience of ethics deals with questions on the nature and development of morality (as in work of Piaget), or more modern theories of free will.

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 communications of ethicists 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 domains 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.

Read more about Neuroethics:  Important Activity From 2002 To 2009: The History of Neuroethics, Sources of Information On Neuroethics, Key Issues in Neuroethics, Academic Journals