Neuro-Doping and the Value of Effort in Endurance Sports
AbstractThe enhancement of athletic performance using procedures that increase physical ability, such as anabolic steroids, is a familiar phenomenon. Yet recent years have also witnessed the rise of direct interventions into thebrain, referred to as “neuro-doping”, that promise to also enhance sports performance. This paper discusses one potential objection to neuro-doping, based on the contribution to athletic achievement, particularly within endurance sports, of effortfully overcoming inner challenges. After introducing the practice of ne uro-doping, and the controversies surrounding it, I describe two major mechanis...
Source: Neuroethics - September 30, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Narrative Devices: Neurotechnologies, Information, and Self-Constitution
This article provides a conceptual and normative framework through which we may understand the potentially ethically significant roles that information generated by neurotechnologies about our brains and minds may play in our construction of our identities. Neuroethics debates currently focus disproportionately on the ways that third parties may (ab)use these kinds of information. These debates occlude interests we may have in whether and how we ourselves encounter information about our own brains and minds. This gap is not yet adequately addressed by most allusions in the literature to potential identity impacts. These la...
Source: Neuroethics - September 27, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Fragility of Moral Traits to Technological Interventions
AbstractI will argue that deep moral enhancement is relatively prone to unexpected consequences. I first argue that even an apparently straightforward example of moral enhancement such as increasing human co-operation could plausibly lead to unexpected harmful effects. Secondly, I generalise the example and argue that technological intervention on individual moral traits will often lead to paradoxical effects on the group level. Thirdly, I contend that insofar as deep moral enhancement targets higher-order desires (desires to desire something), it is prone to be self-reinforcing and irreversible. Fourthly, I argue that the...
Source: Neuroethics - September 25, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Disorders of Consciousness: An Embedded Ethnographic Approach to Uncovering the Specific Influence of Functional Neurodiagnostics of Consciousness in Surrogate Decision Making
AbstractA recent qualitative study published in Neuroethics by Schembs and colleagues explores how functional neurodiagnostics of consciousness inform surrogate decision making in cases of disorders of consciousness. In this commentary, we argue that the chosen methodology significantly limits the scope of the potential conclusions and suggest an embedded ethnographic approach of co-presence as an alternative. (Source: Neuroethics)
Source: Neuroethics - September 16, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Neuro-Doping and Fairness
AbstractIn this article, we critically discuss different versions of the fairness objection to the legalisation of neuro-doping. According to this objection, legalising neuro-doping will result in some enjoying an unfair advantage over others. Basically, we assess four versions. These focus on: 1) the unequal opportunities of winning for athletes who use neuro-doping and for those who do not; 2) the unfair advantages specifically for wealthy athletes; 3) the unfairness of athletic advantages not derived from athletes ’ own training (conventionally understood); and 4) the unfair health care costs imposed on everyone as a ...
Source: Neuroethics - August 16, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Neuro-Doping – a Serious Threat to the Integrity of Sport?
AbstractThe formation of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) in 1999 was spurred by the 1998 revelation of widespread use in professional cycling of erythropoietin (EPO). The drug was supposedly a real danger. The long-term consequences were unknown, but rumor said it made athletes ’ blood thick as jam with clots and other circulatory fatalities likely consequences. Today the fear of EPO has dampened. However, new scientific avenues such as ‘neuro-doping’ have replaced EPO as emergent and imagined threats to athletes and to the integrity of sport. In this paper, we analy ze the alleged threat from ‘neuro-doping’ ...
Source: Neuroethics - July 28, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
The Ethics of Motivational Neuro-Doping in Sport: Praiseworthiness and Prizeworthiness
AbstractMotivational enhancement in sport – a form of ‘neuro-doping’ – can help athletes attain greater achievements in sport. A key question is whether or not that athlete deserves that achievement. We distinguish three concepts – praiseworthiness (whether the athlete deserves praise), prizeworthiness (whether the athlete deserve s the prize), and admiration (pure admiration at the performance) – which are closely related. However, in sport, they can come apart. The most praiseworthy athlete may not be the most prizeworthy, and so on. Using a model of praiseworthiness as costly commitment to a valuable end, an...
Source: Neuroethics - July 22, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Neuro-Doping as a Means to Avert Fascistoid Ideology in Elite Sport
AbstractAssume that neuro-doping is safe and efficient. This means that the use of it, and similar future safe methods of enhancement in sport, may help those who are naturally weak to catch up with those who are naturally strong and sometimes even defeat them. The rationale behind anti-doping measures seem to presuppose that this is unfair. But the idea that those who are naturally strong should defeat those who are naturally weak rests on a fascistoid ideology that sport had better leave behind. Neuro-doping may be seen as a means to undermine the fascistoid notion of fairness. The conjecture is that, given that society ...
Source: Neuroethics - July 15, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Correction to: Pragmatismand the Importance of Interdisciplinary Teams in Investigating Personality Changes Following DBS
The article Pragmatismand the Importance of Interdisciplinary Teams in Investigating Personality Changes Following DBS (Source: Neuroethics)
Source: Neuroethics - July 5, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
First Epileptic Seizure and Initial Diagnosis of Juvenile Myoclonus Epilepsy (JME) in a Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation (tDCS) Study – Ethical Analysis of a Clinical case
AbstractWe discuss an epileptic incident in an undiagnosed 13-year old girl participating in a clinical study investigating the effects of transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) in healthy children and adolescents. This incident poses important research ethics questions with regard to study design, especially pertaining to screening and gaining informed consent. Potential benefits and problems of the incident also need to be considered. The ethical analysis of the case presented in this paper has been informed by an in-depth interview conducted after the incident with the child and the accompanying parent. We discu...
Source: Neuroethics - June 30, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
“Fueling up” Gamers. The Ethics of Marketing Energy Drinks to Gamers
AbstractIn this article, I investigate whether states should regulate energy-drink marketing practices targeting gamers. Energy drinks are high-sugar, high-caffeine, non-alcoholic beverages that allegedly improve energy, stamina, cognitive performance, and concentration. First, I define what “gamer” means and identify the market agents that play a crucial role in the gaming community, including the energy-drink industry. In doing so, I analyze energy-drink marketing practices and explore calls for regulating them. Second, I draw parallels between regulation of energy-drink marketing and marketing of products such as vi...
Source: Neuroethics - June 30, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Determinism and Destigmatization: Mitigating Blame for Addiction
AbstractThe brain disease model of addiction is widely endorsed by agencies concerned with treating behavioral disorders and combatting the stigma often associated with addiction. However, both its accuracy and its effectiveness in reducing stigma have been challenged. A proposed alternative, the “choice” model, recognizes the residual rational behavior control capacities of addicted individuals and their ability to make choices, some of which may cause harm. Since harmful choices are ordinarily perceived as blameworthy, the choice model may inadvertently help justify stigma. This paper seeks to fully naturalize the ch...
Source: Neuroethics - June 26, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Born which Way? ADHD, Situational Self-Control, and Responsibility
AbstractDebates concerning whether Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) mitigates responsibility often involve recourse to its genetic and neurodevelopmental etiology. For such arguments, individuals with ADHD have diminished self-control, and hence do not fully satisfy the control condition for responsibility, when there is a genetic or neurodevelopmental etiology for this diminished capacity. In this article, I argue that the role of genetic and neurobiological explanations has been overstated in evaluations of responsibility. While ADHD has genetic and neurobiological causes, rather than embrace the essent...
Source: Neuroethics - June 24, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Forensic Brain-Reading and Mental Privacy in European Human Rights Law: Foundations and Challenges
AbstractA central question in the current neurolegal and neuroethical literature is how brain-reading technologies could contribute to criminal justice. Some of these technologies have already been deployed within different criminal justice systems in Europe, including Slovenia, Italy, England and Wales, and the Netherlands, typically to determine guilt, legal responsibility, or recidivism risk. In this regard, the question arises whether brain-reading could permissibly be used against the person's will. To provide adequate legal protection from such non-consensual brain-reading in the European legal context, ethicists hav...
Source: Neuroethics - June 19, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
Deflating the Deep Brain Stimulation Causes Personality Changes Bubble: the Authors Reply
AbstractTo conclude that there is enough or not enough evidence demonstrating that deep brain stimulation (DBS) causes unintended postoperative personality changes is an epistemic problem that should be answered on the basis of established, replicable, and valid data. If prospective DBS recipients delay or refuse to be implanted because they are afraid of suffering from personality changes following DBS, and their fears are based on unsubstantiated claims made in the neuroethics literature, then researchers making these claims bear great responsibility for prospective recipients' medical decisions and subsequent well-being...
Source: Neuroethics - June 10, 2020 Category: Medical Ethics Source Type: research
