Neil Levy has delivered another fine issue of the new peer-reviewed journal Neuroethics. In conjunction with the journal, the Neuroethics & Law Blog provides a forum for discussion of the articles that appear in Neuroethics. To that end, over the next couple of weeks, I will post each article in the new issue and provide readers and authors with an opportunity to write comments and raise questions and challenges. But if you want to get a sneak peek at what's to come, check it out here.
Great compilation of articles.
The lesson i get from Jon B. Eisenberg´s and Stacey A. Tovino´s articles is that how much is needed a consensus on standards and the criteria to diagnose and asses brain-based diseases, because can be possible that a given territory´s statutary law interfere with our provisions, decisons and care within the end-life phase. Another lesson is that our scientific and technological knowledge set the public and policy agenda and not backwards, and many spheres of public life and groups of interests (stakeholders) depend on that knowledge to make appropaite judgments.
My reading of Liao´s and Sandberg´s article is that taking into account that memory is a biological phenomenon necessary for a meaningful existence and interaction with the world, i regret that they only focus their philosophical exploration on the issue of the individual normative problems (the individual existence) related to the use of technological intervention on memory, or MMT (memory modifying technology)forgetting the other half of the equation: the interaction with the world (memory for others)
Memory not only affect the individual. They recognize this fact when examining the normative issues that arise for relevant memories in the section entitled "The issue of moral obligation". That kind of trend in neuroethics literature that exclusively focus on "individual choice(s)" forget that neuroethics is eminently a social concern. If would be only a matter of individuals, i think everyone will want in principle to use pharmacological enhancement, be in better shape... but becuase we interact with others, any technological or scientific technology must be put into ethical pause to foresee the consequences in others.
I´ve read only these three articles, but i look forward to read them all.
Posted by: Anibal | 09/06/2008 at 11:38 AM