Intensity of Experience: Maher ’s Theory of Schizophrenic Delusion Revisited
AbstractMaher proposed in 1974 that schizophrenic delusions are hypotheses formed to explain anomalous experiences. He stated that they are “rational, given the intensity of the experiences that they are developed to explain.” Two-factor theorists of delusion criticized Maher’s theory because 1) it does not explain why some patients with anomalous experiences do not develop delusions, and 2) adopting and adhering to delusional hyp otheses is irrational, considering the totality of experiences and patients’ other beliefs. In this paper, the notion of the intensity of experience is reappraised to uphold Maher’s bas...
Source: Neuroethics - September 13, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
More Autonomous or more Fenced-in? Neuroscientific Instruments and Intervention in Criminal Justice
AbstractNeuroscientific research in relation to antisocial behavior has strongly grown in the last decades. This has resulted in a better understanding of biological factors associated with antisocial behavior. Furthermore several neuroscientific instruments and interventions have been developed that have a relatively low threshold for use in the criminal justice system to contribute to prevention or reduction of antisocial and criminal behavior. When considering implementation in the criminal justice system, ethical aspects of the use of neuroscientific instruments and interventions need to be taken into account. With res...
Source: Neuroethics - September 13, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Embodiment in Neuro-engineering Endeavors: Phenomenological Considerations and Practical Implications
AbstractThe field of Neuro-Engineering seems to be on the fast track towards accomplishing its ultimate goal of potentially replacing the nervous system in the face of disease. Meanwhile, the patients and professionals involved are continuously dealing with human bodily experience and especially how neuro-engineering devices could become part of a user ’s body schema: the domain of ‘embodied phenomenology’. This focus on embodiment, however, is not sufficiently reflected in the current literature on ethical and philosophical issues in neuro-engineering. In this article we will focus on this lacuna by explaining exist...
Source: Neuroethics - September 6, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Bodily Felt Freedom: an Ethical Perspective on Positive Aspects of Deep Brain Stimulation
AbstractThe critical aspects of deep brain stimulation (DBS) are usually the focus of the ethical debate about the implantation of electrodes into the brain of patients with Parkinson’s disease (PD). Above all, potential postoperative side effects on personality caused by DBS mark the debate. However, rehabilitation of agility and mobility by DBS can be posited against critical aspects. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to emphasize the hitherto neglected positive aspects of that technology. A detailed study of the rehabilitation of controlled movements will thus be the object of this article. The possibility t...
Source: Neuroethics - August 22, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Free Will, Self-Governance and Neuroscience: An Overview
AbstractGiven dramatic increases in recent decades in the pace of scientific discovery and understanding of the functional organization of the brain, it is increasingly clear that engagement with the neuroscientific literature and research is central to making progress on philosophical questions regarding the nature and scope of human freedom and responsibility. While patterns of brain activity cannot provide the whole story, developing a deeper and more precise understanding of how brain activity is related to human choice and conduct is crucial to the development of realistic, just, and intellectually rigorous models of ...
Source: Neuroethics - August 20, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Incapacitation, Reintegration, and Limited General Deterrence
AbstractThe aim of this article is to set out a theory for treatment of criminals that (1) rejects retributive justification for punishment; (2) does not fall afoul of a plausible prohibition on using people merely as means; and (3) actually works in the real world. The theory can be motivated by free will skepticism. But it can also be supported without reference to the free will issue, since retributivism faces ethical challenges in its own right. In past versions of the account I ’ve emphasized the quarantine analogy for incapacitation together with the value of rehabilitation and reintegration. Here I pay special att...
Source: Neuroethics - August 11, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Review of Gregg D. Caruso and Owen Flanagan (eds.), Neuroexistentialism: Meaning, Morals, & amp; Purpose in the Age of Neuroscience, Oxford University Press, 2018, 392pp., ISBN: 9780190460730
AbstractIn this review, I offer an overview of of the questions that caught my attention while reading Neuroexistentialism. I aim to make it clear why the issues that are raised in this volume are worth exploring in more detail. I also hope to clarify the limitations that are imposed by neural and social constraints, and to recommend ways of anchoring a third wave of existentialism in our understanding of neuroscience, our expanding sense of cultural variation, and our emerging recognition of the contingency of even our most deeply sedimented ways of perceiving and acting in the world. (Source: Neuroethics)
Source: Neuroethics - July 31, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Metamorality without Moral Truth
AbstractRecently, Joshua Greene has argued that we need a metamorality to solve moral problems for which evolution has not prepared us. The metamorality that he proposes is a utilitarian account that he calls deep pragmatism. Deep pragmatism is supposed to arbitrate when the values espoused by different groups clash. To date, no systematic appraisal of this argument for a metamorality exists. We reconstruct Greene ’s case for deep pragmatism as a metamorality and consider three lines of objection to it. We argue that, in the end, only one of these objections seriously threatens Greene’s position. Greene has to commit t...
Source: Neuroethics - July 21, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Attitudes towards Personhood in the Locked-in Syndrome: from Third- to First- Person Perspective and to Interpersonal Significance
AbstractPersonhood is ascribed on others, such that someone who is recognized to be a person is bestowed with certain civil rights and the right to decision making. A rising question is how severely brain-injured patients who regain consciousness can also regain their personhood. The case of patients with locked-in syndrome (LIS) is illustrative in this matter. Upon restoration of consciousness, patients with LIS find themselves in a state of profound demolition of their bodily functions. From the third-person perspective, it can be expected that LIS patients might experience a differential personal identity and may lose...
Source: Neuroethics - July 13, 2018 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
