Neuroethics: Defining the issues in theory, practice, and policy [Paperback]

Interestingly it was William Safire, a former columnist of the New York Times, who coined the term 'neuroethics.' This he did in a conference in 2002, wherein he encouraged the participants to 'map the terrain of neuroethics.' This book, consisting of articles by some well-known researchers in cognitive neuroscience and neurophilosophy, outlines some of the major issues in neuroethics. All of the articles are very insightful, and introduce the reader to some of the main issues in neuroethics at the present time. Advances in neuroscience, like those in genomics, genetic engineering, and artificial intelligence, have caused great anxiety in some, due to their potential for abuse. Part of the field of neuroethics is concerned with the ethical considerations behind these advances, but part of it also deals with the explanation of ethical standards from a neuroscientific point of view. If a system of ethics is to be practical, it must be compatible with the processes in the brain and the actual decision-making capabilities of the brain. A study of how ethical considerations are processed by the brain will allow insight into the proper conduct of a human being, or at will at least give hints as to what direction to move in performing systematic constructions of ethical systems. This part of neuroethics thus deals with questions that have traditionally been in the realm of philosophy, but it shows promise in giving a scientific "foundation" for ethics.

Every article in this book is extremely interesting, but the one by Patricia Smith Churchland which begins the book is the most interesting of those in the book, at least in the opinion of this reviewer. She clearly believes that the increased understanding of the brain obtained in the last few decades reveals that ethical standards and rules have their origin in human neurobiology. This belief may raise the ire of many in religious circles, but 'naturalized ethics', as she calls it, has its foundation in biology, and not in collections of rules or maxims having no immediate or long-term survival value. Neuroethics is a more practical approach to moral decision making, and is to be differentiated from the rule-based ethics of the world's religions or governmental bureaucracies. Such a system of ethics will respect the causal nature of the brain, and will not expect individuals to alter their belief structures or change their behavior automatically when they are confronted with new ideas or experiences. The reward system of the brain in social learning, the author remarks, encourages respect for existing social institutions and therefore it is sometimes difficult for individuals to challenge these institutions and the ideas they stand for. In this context it is interesting to observe that political conservatism holds as one of its major tenets respect for institutions and hierarchies, and a strong repugnance to change. But as the author notes, revolutions do occur, and the changes that take place can sometimes be designated as moral progress. The author though is a materialist, and therefore believes the soul or some sort of 'mind-stuff' is pure fiction. This and the causal nature of the brain therefore requires us to reevaluate the nature of personal responsibility and free will. The author addresses these questions in her article, the content of which has a large intersection with that typically found in philosophy (such as in the writings of the philosopher David Hume), but she does offer neuroscientific evidence for her conclusions. If the neuroscientific view of the brain as a causal machine is correct this will have ramifications of course in the legal domain, the doctrine of 'mens rea' being one that the author discusses. She rejects however any notion of punishment and responsibility that is rooted in some hypothetical Platonic realm. The correct view, she argues, is that these notions are rooted in the social need for civil behavior. She then gives a fascinating discussion for a 'neurobiological profile' for when the brain is 'in control' and when it is not. Noting that the evidence from neuroscience is not strong enough to give accurate values for the parameters that describe the 'normal' brain, she expresses confidence that future research will allow a 'parameter space' to be constructed. This parameter space will point to those values of the parameters where the person is 'in control' and those values in which the person is not. The construction of this parameter space, based as it is on what is known from neuroscience, has interesting ramifications, one of these being that it will identify the region of the brain that is responsible for the strong human need for adventure and novelty; for being 'out-of-control' at least for short time scales.

The article by Adina Roskies is also very interesting, one reason being that it makes the distinction between the 'ethics of neuroscience' and the 'neuroscience of ethics'. the latter being a scientific approach to understanding ethical behavior, and being the topic of the article. The author points out early on that the brain does not contain a region that could be designated as a 'moral center' Neuroimaging reveals instead that moral reasoning is distributed throughout the brain, but the author focuses on the role of the ventromedial frontal (VM) cortex in this article. This region is apparently responsible for some 'moral processing' as damage to it reveals that the individual shows dramatic impairment in situations that have a 'moral component.' The author gives an extensive discussion of the evidence for the role of the VM in moral cognition, and argues against the doctrine of 'internalism', namely that moral beliefs or judgments are intrinsically motivating, I.e that it is the subject matter of the content of the judgment that provides the motivation.