Neuroethics

The Fiction of Affliction in Addiction

by Practical Ethics
May 26, 2010

by Julian Savulescu

1. a disorder of self-control that comes in degrees. It is essentially pathological self-control, like compulsive hand-washing, where the addict has limited control in some circumstances but not enough self-control.

2. a mental disease.

Bennett Foddy and I have argued that while addicts may have poor self-control and act imprudently, poor self-control and imprudence are not diseases. They are features of the human condition. People become addicted to all sorts of things: heroin, alcohol, nicotine, gambling, sugar, sex, the internet and food. What is common to all these addictions is that involve the reward system. Heroin may be more potent at activating this system than sugar, but they all act in a similar way. There are differences in degree, not kind.

Are addicts responsible? Leverhulme lecture 25/5/10

by Practical Ethics
May 26, 2010

Professor Walter Sinnot-Armstrong gave a Leverhulme lecture last night on the question of addiction and responsibility. Click on the image or the link below to download or view a pdf of his presentation. "Are addicts responsible?" Listen to the podcast

Are We Future Evil Aliens?

by Practical Ethics
April 27, 2010

By: Julian Savulescu

Stephen Hawking, the Cambridge physicist, has recently argued, in a Discovery channel documentary, that alien life forms probably exist somewhere in the Universe, but we should avoid contact with them. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8642558.stm). His reason is, apparently, that if they are anything like humans, they are likely to be aggressive and either exterminate us or pillage our resources.

"If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans," he said. "We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn't want to meet."

Arguing about moral responsibility

by Neil Levy
April 21, 2010

Outside applied ethics and neuroethics, I work in philosophy of agency, specifically on the interlinked topics of free will and moral responsibility (interlinked because I, like most participants in the debate, understand free will, if it exists, to be the power we have to act in a way that makes us morally responsible for our actions). I defend a very unusual position in the free will debate, which I won’t get into now. But one feature it shares with some others (a relatively small minority) is that it holds that we don’t have free will, in the sense defined, and therefore we are not morally responsible for our actions (or for anything else). In this post, I want to address a common criticism of my argument, and of other arguments for the same conclusion. The criticism, roughly, is this: you are arguing for a radical revision of our beliefs and our practices: the overturning of a central component of our conception of ourselves and one another. But arguments for radical revisions of common sense must meet higher standards than arguments for less radical conclusions. As the stakes go up, so do the argumentative standards.

Cognitive enhancers: unfair at any dose?

by Anders Sandberg
February 22, 2010

How should universities tackle the use of cognitive enhancement drugs by students? Professor Barbara Sahakian raised the issue in a recent talk. While hard numbers are hard to come by, it is likely that at least a few percent of university students take drugs believed to improve cognitive ability. This may give them advantages that could be unfair (if some have access while others haven't) or would have coercive effects (if you don't take the drug but your classmates are, you will be at a disadvantage). Are enhancer use among students inherently unfair and coercive?

Coma Confusion Resolved

by Neil Levy
February 22, 2010

Back in November, I blogged about the case of Rom Houben, a man who after more than two decades in what was apparently a persistent vegetative state was found to be conscious. Following the newspaper reports of the time – as I noted at the time, I had nothing to go on except newspaper reports – I described it as a case in which the locked-in state was misdiagnosed as vegetative state. These mistakes do, tragically, occur. But we now know that Rom Houben is not in the locked-in state at all. The diagnosis of locked-in state was made on the basis of the use of facilitated communication, a technique in which someone is supposedly helped to communicate. Usually the facilitator guides the hand of the person they aim to help; the idea being that they can compensate for the muscular weakness by sensitively interpreting the person’s movements. Facilitated communication became notorious in the 1990s, when it was found that in most cases in which it was used (mainly to communicate with severely autistic individuals) the facilitators were producing the message. The test is simple: put headphones in both the facilitator and the person they are trying to help, and ask them questions simultaneously. Sometimes both receive the same questions, sometimes they receive different questions. The finding is that answers are always to the questions asked of the facilitator (obviously the fact that the facilitators have gladly participated in this research is good evidence of their sincerity. How we can mistake our own movements for someone else’s is a fascinating question, explored interestingly by Daniel Wegner in The Illusion of Conscious Will).

Brain imaging and PVS: How excited should we be?

by Neil Levy
February 4, 2010

How exciting is the new research on the consciousness of patients diagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state (discussed here)? From a scientific point of view, this is an important piece of research. The ability to respond to yes/no questions is surely a reliable indicator of consciousness; once we have identified patients who can pass this test, we can begin to conduct other tests, to see whether the results correlate. We can begin to see whether the evidence of electrical activity in the brain in response to words or to physical discomfort reflect consciousness or are merely indicators of unconscious activity. The new research also might have great diagnostic value. But we must be careful not to overinterpret the results.

Is the brain half full – or half empty?

by Dominic Wilkinson
February 4, 2010

There have been dramatic headlines in the media ('Coma Man. I think…I’m alive') following the publication yesterday of a new study using brain scans to detect consciousness in profoundly brain damaged patients. For the first time scientists and doctors have demonstrated that some patients diagnosed with persistent vegetative state may be able to communicate using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

Belgian coma confusion

by Neil Levy
November 25, 2009January 11, 2011

By now most readers will have heard about the case of the Belgian man, Rom Houben, apparently misdiagnosed as in a persistent vegetative state for 23 years. Rather than being unconscious, as persistent vegetative state patients are thought to be, he was apparently in the ‘locked-in state’. The locked-in state is not a disorder of consciousness at all; instead it is a state of paralysis. Because the patient is unable to give the behavioral manifestations of consciousness, they are often misdiagnosed. Genuine disorders of consciousness are notoriously hard to tell apart; the possibility of locked-in syndrome makes the diagnostic task even more difficult.

Speaking truth to power

by Anders Sandberg
November 2, 2009

The sacking of Professor David Nutt from the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs has led to a spirited row between politicians and scientists. Colleagues in ACMD are resigning, refusing to be used as mere rubber stamps for pre-determined agendas. The home secretary seems to want to reorganize it to his liking.

The origin of the conflict is Nutt's staunch harm-reduction and evidence based policy position: he thinks drugs should be legally classified by the harm they do, not so much by political expediency. Alcohol and tobacco are more harmful than cannabis, taking ecstasy appears to be less risky than horse riding (when counting injuries and death). Hence he has criticised policies ministers for upgrading medically less harmful drugs. While certainly controversial in the anti-drug community his arguments appear to be based on solid science. As a scientist he should also sound the alarm if the government is "devaluing and distorting" the scientific evidence.

Alan Johnson sees things differently: "He was asked to go because he cannot be both a government adviser and a campaigner against government policy." The role of an advisor is only to advice, while the government decides policy. But if the policy is against the evidence, should not the advisor advise to change the policy?