Reasons Scientists Avoid Thinking about Ethics

Science is a powerful force for change in modern society. As the professionals at its helm, scientists have a unique responsibility to shepherd that change with thoughtful advocacy of their research and careful ethical scrutiny of their own behavior. In this paper, the author reviews some of the impediments that keeps scientists from taking ethical responsibility for their own work and the work in their institutions and fields of study

Emerging Neurotechnologies for Lie Detection and the Fifth Amendment

The article examines the legal implications and advantages of emerging Neurotechnological Lie Detection (NTLD). The self-incrimination clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was taken into account, including its scope over NTLD. Key information about the reliability and privacy issues of NTLD is further presented

Monitoring and manipulating the human brain: new neuroscience technologies and their ethical implications

Discusses the use of new neuroscience technologies in monitoring and manipulating brain function, as of May 2004. History of modern brain imaging; Implications of neuroimaging for medical ethics; Factors that contributed to brain enhancement

Emerging neurotechnologies for lie-detection: promises and perils

Detection of deception and confirmation of truth telling with conventional polygraphy raised a host of technical and ethical issues. Recently, newer methods of recording electromagnetic signals from the brain show promise in permitting the detection of deception or truth telling. Some are even being promoted as more accurate than conventional polygraphy. While the new technologies raise issues of personal privacy, acceptable forensic application, and other social issues, the focus of this paper is the technical limitations of the developing technology. Those limitations include the measurement validity of the new technologies, which remains largely unknown. Another set of questions pertains to the psychological paradigms used to model or constrain the target behavior. Finally, there is little standardization in the field, and the vulnerability of the techniques to countermeasures is unknown. Premature application of these technologies outside of research settings should be resisted, and the social conversation about the appropriate parameters of its civil, forensic, and security use should begin

Brain Research and Neuroethics

In the past year neuroethics has begun to command the attention of neuroscientists, ethicists and journalists. Ethical questions associated with new knowledge of the human brain have received extensive coverage in the popular press with cover stories in The Economist and The New Scientist. There has also been a burst of discussion in the scientific literature (Farah, 2002; Wolpe, 2003), and a number of professional conferences have recently focused attention on the field. The current capability of neuroscience to monitor and alter brain function has profound ethical implications, which scientists and the public have only begun to examine

Bioethics and the Brain

Microelectronics and medical imaging are bringing us closer to a world where mind reading is possible and blindness banished - but we may not want to live there. New ways of imaging the human brain and new developments in microelectronics are providing unprecedented capabilities for monitoring the brain in real time and even for controlling brain function. The technologies are novel, but some of the questions that they will raise are not. Electrical activity in the brain can reveal the contents of a person\u27s memory. New imaging techniques might allow physician to detect devastating diseases long before those diseases become clinically apparent. And researchers may one day find brain activity that correlates with behavior patterns such as tendencies toward alcoholism, aggression, pedophilia, or racism. But how reliable will the information be, how should it be used, and what will it do to our notion of privacy? Meanwhile, microelectronics is making access to the brain a two-way street. The same electrical stimulation technologies that allow some deaf people to hear could be fashioned to control behavior as well. What are the appropriate limits to the use of this technology? Ethicists are only now beginning to take note of these developments in neuroscience

Neurocognitive Enhancement: what can we do and what should we do?

Our growing ability to alter brain function can be used to enhance the mental processes of normal individuals as well as to treat mental dysfunction in people who are ill. The prospect of neurocognitive enhancement raises many issues about what is safe, fair and otherwise morally acceptable. This article resulted from a meeting on neurocognitive enhancement that was held by the authors. Our goal is to review the state of the art in neurocognitive enhancement, its attendant social and ethical problems, and the ways in which society can address these problems