Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation: Fundamental enhancement for humanity?
The idea of a simple, cheap and widely available device that could boost brain function sounds too good to be true.
Yet promising results in the lab with emerging ‘brain stimulation’ techniques, though still very preliminary, have prompted Oxford neuroscientists to team up with leading ethicists at the University to consider the issues the new technology could raise.
Recent research in Oxford and elsewhere has shown that one type of brain stimulation in particular, called transcranial direct current stimulation or TDCS, can be used to improve language and maths abilities, memory, problem solving, attention, even movement.
Critically, this is not just helping to restore function in those with impaired abilities. TDCS can be used to enhance healthy people’s mental capacities. Indeed, most of the research so far has been carried out in healthy adults.
More details from Oxford Press Release
My Comment:
This research cuts to core of humanity: the capacity to learn. The capacity to learn varies across people, across ages and with illness. Enhancing the capacity to learn of children and adults, with impairments and without. The ability to learn is a basic human good. This kind of technology enables people to get more out of the work they put into learning something.
This is a first step down the path of maximizing human potential. It is a very exciting development. We need to control the release of the genie. Although this looks like a simple external device, it acts by affecting the brain. That could have very good effects, but unpredictable side effects. We should aim to do better than we have with the development of pharmaceuticals. We should learn from our mistakes over the last forty years.
Of course, as with any powerful technology, not only is there the possibility of great benefit, there is potential for misuse and abuse. This has been used in other experiments to improve ability to lie.
Lawmaker Steals Leather Pants: Brain May Be Responsible, Lawyer Says
The title of this post is an edited version of a headline that appeared this week at ABC news. The story behind it is that a Californian politician named Mary was caught shoplifting, and her lawyer says that her impaired judgment may have been caused by a benign brain tumour.
We can accept that in principle, a brain tumour could undermine Mary’s moral responsibility and excuse her actions, because we now know that tumours can press on parts of the brain and prevent them functioning properly – causing all kinds of unusual thoughts and behaviours. And Mary could hardly be held responsible for her having a brain tumour. She didn’t choose to have it; it just happened to her.
Sam Harris is wrong about science and morality
By Brian Earp
I just finished a booklet by “New Atheist” Sam Harris — on lying — and I plan to write about it in the coming days. But I want to dig up an older Harris book, The Moral Landscape. Why? Because it still makes me grimace.
I say “still” because I read the book months ago. I just haven’t yet vented my bafflement. Permit me to gripe, then, about Harris’ (aging) “bold new” claim — presented in his book — that science can “determine human values” or “tell us what’s objectively true about morality” or “give us answers about right and wrong” or however else you package this fiction.
In his new book (the one about lying) Harris says, in effect, you should never, ever, do it — yet his pretense in The Moral Landscape to be revolutionizing moral philosophy seems to me the very height of dishonesty. What he actually does in his book is plain old secular moral reasoning — and not very well — but he claims he’s using science to decide right from wrong. That Harris could be naive enough to think he’s really bridged the famous “is/ought” chasm seems incredible, and so I submit that he’s exaggerating* to sell books. Shame on him.
*A previous version of this post had the word “lying” here, but I was told that my rhetorical flourish might be interpreted as libel. I hope “exaggerating” is sufficiently safe. Now onward to my argument:
My son’s dyslexic, and I’m glad
By Charles Foster
My son is dyslexic, and I’m glad.
Most people think that I am deranged or callous. But I have two related reasons, both of which seem to me to be good.
The first is that his dyslexia is an inextricable part of him. I can’t say: ‘This is the pathological bit, which I resent’, as one might say of a tumour. Take away his dyslexia, and he wouldn’t be the same person, but able to read and write. He wouldn’t be him. That would be far too high a price for me to pay. And for him to pay? Well, there you run into Parfit’s non-identity problem.
Announcement: International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting
The 2011 annual meeting of the International Neuroethics Society will be held in Washington DC from November 10 and 11, and registration is now open. A number of contributors to the Practical Ethics and Neuroethics blogs will be in attendance.
Some highlights of the programme include:
- Panel discussion on “Social knowledge and the evolution of cooperation in monkeys and apes”, featuring Patricia Churchland
- Breakout group on “Teaching neuroethics”, featuring Martha Farah
- Breakout group on “Neuroethics Careers”, featuring Hank Greely and Alan Leshner
- A panel on “Neuroscience, National Security and Society”, featuring Jonathan Moreno
More details and registration can be accessed at this page.
Creating Non-Human People
Last week, the Academy of Medical Sciences released a report calling for better regulation of experiments involving animals containing human tissues or genes. One specific claim made by the report is that experiments which entail “modifying non-human primates to create human-like awareness or behaviour” should be banned. Was it right to call for such a ban? Continue reading
The Need for a Progressive Neuroethics
Neuroscience is challenging previously maintained notions about the structure and function of nervous systems, the basis of consciousness, and the nature of the brain-mind-self relationship. Such developments prompt re-examination of concepts of ‘personhood,’ which forms the basis of the modern social sphere and its interpretation. Contemporary neuroscience also questions traditional socially defined ontologies, fundamental social values, conventions, norms, and the ethical responsibilities relevant to constructs of individual and/or social “good.” Moreover, neuroscientific developments are rapidly being translated into medical and social contexts in the present, not at some unforeseen point in the future.
Announcement: Welcome to members of the International Neuroethics Society
We are pleased to welcome members of the International Ethics Society (INS), who are collaborating with us on the new Neuroethics blog. The new blog is co-located with our existing practical ethics blog, and all neuroethics articles will be automatically cross-posted between the two. You can access the neuroethics blog by clicking here.
Martha Farah, the Communications and Outreach Chair for the INS, sends the following message to inaugurate the neuroethics blog.
Thank you to Bennett, Julian and the rest of the Practical Ethics Bloggers, from your new partners in neuroethics blogging: the International Neuroethics Society!
For those of you who don’t know about the INS (formerly the NS), we are a group of academics and professionals who together work to support the following mission:
“Our mission is to promote the development and responsible application of neuroscience through interdisciplinary and international research, education, outreach and public engagement for the benefit of people of all nations, ethnicities, and cultures.”
If you are reading this blog, and find the neuroethics postings interesting, then I respectfully submit that you are our kind of person – so please join the Society! Here’s where you can find out more: http://www.neuroethicssociety.org/
To INS members who are reading this, I hope you will consider blogging here whenever you come across a news item, academic publication or talk that raises interesting neuroethical issues. Share your thoughts here, and start a discussion with other members and readers. That way we can learn from each other.
If you’d like to submit to the blog, or have other questions about it, please contact Bennett Foddy, at bennett {dot} foddy {at} philosophy (dot) ox (dot) ac (dot) uk.
–Martha J. Farah, INS Communications and Outreach Chair
Annoucement: Bio-ethics Bites
We are pleased to announce the launch of Bio-ethics Bites, a freely-available series of interviews with leading thinkers on issues in practical ethics. Already posted: an interview with Jeff McMahan (Rutgers) on the question of moral status, and an interview with Julian Savulescu (Oxford) on designer babies.
In the pipeline: interviews with Peter Singer (Princeton), Nick Bostrom (Oxford) and Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve.
Bio-ethics Bites is produced by David Edmonds and Nigel Warburton, and funded by the Wellcome trust.
‘No smoking’ signs trigger urge to light up: Communism, Marriage, Evidence-Based Medicine and the Fate of the World
Before you read the blog, please take:
General Knowledge Ethics Quiz
- What is the main cause of climate change?
- What is main cause of global poverty?
- Why does terrorism exist?
- What caused the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster?
Write your answers on a piece of paper for reference. I will provide my answers presently and we can compare.
THE BLOG
Brian Earp, a master’s student at Oxford University’s Department of Experimental Psychology, has found that ‘no-smoking and anti junk food adverts can be counter-productive by encouraging the behaviour they warn against’. Mr Earp asked 29 smokers to look at 25 images, some of which included ‘no smoking signs’. He found that when they viewed images of the signs they were more motivated to smoke than when they did not see the images.
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