Neuroethics & Law Blog

"Personal Autonomy and Authenticity: Adolescents’ Discretionary Use of Methylphenidate"

"Personal Autonomy and Authenticity: Adolescents’ Discretionary Use of Methylphenidate" by Amos Fleishmann and Avigayl Kaliski has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

Minors with attention-deficit-hyperactivity disorders (ADHD) are liable to use pharmacological treatment against their will and may find their authentic “I” modified. Thus, their use is widely criticized. In this study, the effect of ADHD drugs on adolescents’ personal experience is examined. The goal is to understand how psychological changes that young people experience when they take these medications interrelate with their attitude toward being medicated. Methylphenidate is the most common pharmacological treatment for ADHD. We look into the change that Israeli adolescents undergo when they use it; their experience in controlling the change, and their assessment of the meaning of the change for their lives. Thirty-eight adolescents participated in semi-structured interviews. The findings, analyzed using grounded theory, show that methylphenidate affects the participants’ demeanor, mood, and even preferences. The participants, aware of these effects, apply discretion in taking methylphenidate and thus influence their traits and their willingness to engage in various activities. When needing to prepare for a matriculation exam, for example, they take methylphenidate; when they need to be creative or sociable, they avoid it and enjoy what they consider the advantages of ADHD, such as creativity and spontaneity. As discretionary users, they shape their life stories in a way that makes them more meaningful and diverse, better tailored to their social surroundings, and more useful in maintaining personal autonomy in the course of pharmacological treatment of ADHD.

"Public Attitudes Towards Moral Enhancement. Evidence that Means Matter Morally"

"Public Attitudes Towards Moral Enhancement. Evidence that Means Matter Morally" by Jona Specker, Maartje H. N. Schermer, and Peter B. Reiner has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

To gain insight into the reasons that the public may have for endorsing or eschewing pharmacological moral enhancement for themselves or for others, we used empirical tools to explore public attitudes towards these issues. Participants (N = 293) from the United States were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and were randomly assigned to read one of several contrastive vignettes in which a 13-year-old child is described as bullying another student in school and then is offered an empathy-enhancing program. The empathy-enhancing program is described as either involving taking a pill or playing a video game on a daily basis for four weeks. In addition, participants were asked to imagine either their own child bullying another student at school, or their own child being bullied by another student. This resulted in a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. In an escalating series of morally challenging questions, we asked participants to rate their overall support for the program; whether they would support requiring participation; whether they would support requiring participation of children who are at higher risk to become bullies in the future; whether they would support requiring participation of all children or even the entire population; and whether they would be willing to participate in the program themselves. We found that people were significantly more troubled by pharmacological as opposed to non-pharmacological moral enhancement interventions. The results indicate that members of the public for the greater part oppose pharmacological moral bioenhancement, yet are open to non-biomedical means to attain moral enhancement.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Crash Course in the Nature of Mind, Johns Hopkins Magazine   How to Hack Your Brain (for $5,000), The New York Times The Neuroethics of Brainprinting, The Neuroethics Blog Patient Voices: Alzheimer’s Disease, The New York Times Even Jellyfish Sleep, The Atlantic The Brain’s Sensational Juggling Act, Discover Magazine Bring on the bodyNET, Nature Magazine Languages Don’t All Have the Same Number of Terms for Colors – Scientists Have a New Theory Why, The Conversation Depressed? Genetics Affect How Drugs Work, The Seattle Times Researchers Unite in Quest for ‘Standard Model’ of the Brain, Nature Magazine Consciousness Goes Deeper Than You Think, Scientific American The Social Life of Opioids, Scientific American Blind Patients to Test Bionic Eye Brain Implants, MIT Technology Review The Future of Detecting Brain Damage in Football, The Atlantic Finally, a Driverless Car with Some Common Sense, MIT Technology Review Conspirators in Their Own Memory Loss – Findings from 53 Patients with “Psychogenic Amnesia", Research Digest   Neuroscience: From Embryo Mutation to Adult Degeneration, Nature Magazine The Use of Brain Organoids to Investigate Neural Development and Disease, Nature Reviews Neuroscience Memories Take the Sub-Way, Nature Reviews Neuroscience

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

"Towards a Moral Ecology of Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement in British Universities"

"Towards a Moral Ecology of Pharmacological Cognitive Enhancement in British Universities" by Meghana Kasturi Vagwala, Aude Bicquelet, Gabija Didziokaite, Ross Coomber, Oonagh Corrigan and Ilina Singh has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

Few empirical studies in the UK have examined the complex social patterns and values behind quantitative estimates of the prevalence of pharmacological cognitive enhancement (PCE). We conducted a qualitative investigation of the social dynamics and moral attitudes that shape PCE practices among university students in two major metropolitan areas in the UK. Our thematic analysis of eight focus groups (n = 66) suggests a moral ecology that operates within the social infrastructure of the university. We find that PCE resilience among UK university students is mediated by normative and cultural judgments disfavoring competitiveness and prescription drug taking. PCE risk can be augmented by social factors such as soft peer pressure and normalization of enhancement within social and institutional networks. We suggest that moral ecological dynamics should be viewed as key mechanisms of PCE risk and resilience in universities. Effective PCE governance within universities should therefore attend to developing further understanding of the moral ecologies of PCE.

 

"The Multiplicity of Memory Enhancement: Practical and Ethical Implications of the Diverse Neural Substrates Underlying Human Memory Systems"

"The Multiplicity of Memory Enhancement: Practical and Ethical Implications of the Diverse Neural Substrates Underlying Human Memory Systems" by Kieran C. R. Fox, Nicholas S. Fitz, and Peter B. Reiner has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

The neural basis of human memory is incredibly complex. We argue that the diversity of neural systems underlying various forms of memory suggests that any discussion of enhancing ‘memory’ per se is too broad, thus obfuscating the biopolitical debate about human enhancement. Memory can be differentiated into at least four major (and several minor) systems with largely dissociable (i.e., non-overlapping) neural substrates. We outline each system, and discuss both the practical and the ethical implications of these diverse neural substrates. In practice, distinct neural bases imply the possibility, and likely the necessity, of specific approaches for the safe and effective enhancement of various memory systems. In the debate over the ethical and social implications of enhancement technologies, this fine-grained perspective clarifies—and may partially mitigate—certain common concerns in enhancement debates, including issues related to safety, fairness, coercion, and authenticity. While many researchers certainly appreciate the neurobiological complexity of memory, the political debate tends to revolve around a monolithic one-size-fits-all conception. The overall project—exploring how human enhancement technologies affect society – stands to benefit from a deeper appreciation of memory’s neurobiological diversity.

"Does Kantian Ethics Condone Mood and Cognitive Enhancement?"

"Does Kantian Ethics Condone Mood and Cognitive Enhancement?" by Robert R. Clewis has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

The author examines whether Kantian ethics would condone the use of pharmaceutical drugs to enhance one’s moods and cognitive abilities. If key assumptions concerning safety and efficacy, non-addictiveness, non-coercion, and accessibility are not met, Kantian ethics would consider mood and cognitive enhancement to be impermissible. But what if these assumptions are granted? The arguments for the permissibility of neuroenhancement are stronger than those against it. After giving a general account of Kantian ethical principles, the author argues that, when these assumptions are granted, Kantian ethics no longer justifies the prohibition of neuroenhancement, and responds to two objections.

"Moral Enhancement Should Target Self-Interest and Cognitive Capacity"

"Moral Enhancement Should Target Self-Interest and Cognitive Capacity" by Rafael Ahlskog has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract:

Current suggestions for capacities that should be targeted for moral enhancement has centered on traits like empathy, fairness or aggression. The literature, however, lacks a proper model for understanding the interplay and complexity of moral capacities, which limits the practicability of proposed interventions. In this paper, I integrate some existing knowledge on the nature of human moral behavior and present a formal model of prosocial motivation. The model provides two important results regarding the most friction-free route to moral enhancement. First, we should consider decreasing self-interested motivation rather than increasing prosociality directly. Second, this should be complemented with cognitive enhancement. These suggestions are tested against existing and emerging evidence on cognitive capacity, mindfulness meditation and the effects of psychedelic drugs and are found to have sufficient grounding for further theoretical and empirical exploration. Furthermore, moral effects of the latter two are hypothesized to result from a diminished sense of self with subsequent reductions in self-interest.

"From ‘Hard’ Neuro-Tools to ‘Soft’ Neuro-Toys? Refocussing the Neuro-Enhancement Debate"

"From ‘Hard’ Neuro-Tools to ‘Soft’ Neuro-Toys? Refocussing the Neuro-Enhancement Debate" by Jonna Brenninkmeijer and Hub Zwart has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

Since the 1990’s, the debate concerning the ethical, legal and societal aspects of ‘neuro-enhancement’ has evolved into a massive discourse, both in the public realm and in the academic arena. This ethical debate, however, tends to repeat the same sets of arguments over and over again. Normative disagreements between transhumanists and bioconservatives on invasive or radical brain stimulators, and uncertainties regarding the use and effectivity of nootropic pharmaceuticals dominate the field. Building on the results of an extensive European project on responsible research and innovation in neuro-enhancement (NERRI), we observe and encourage that the debate is now entering a new and, as we will argue, more realistic and societally relevant stage. This new stage concerns those technologies that enter the market as ostensibly harmless contrivances that consumers may use for self-care or entertainment. We use the examples and arguments of participants in NERRI debates to describe three case studies of such purportedly innocent ‘toys’. Based upon this empirical material, we argue that these ‘soft’ enhancement gadgets are situated somewhere in the boundary zone between the internal and the external, between the intimate and the intrusive, between the familiar and the unfamiliar, between the friendly and the scary and, in Foucauldian terms, between technologies of the self and technologies of control. Therefore, we describe their physiognomy with the help of a term borrowed from Jacques Lacan, namely as “extimate” technologies.

 

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Stop Pretending You Really Know What AI is and Read This Instead, Quartz   Neuroethics as Outreach, The Neuroethics Blog Giving Proof, The New York Times When the Mind Wanders: An Anatomy of Daydreaming, The Atlantic Imagination is Ancient, AEON Crash Course in the Nature of Mind, Johns Hopkins Magazine Why Teenage Brains Are So Hard to Understand, Time Magazine Science Debate: Should We Embrace an Enhanced Future?, BBC News A Rare Dementia Gene Runs In The Family, But He’s Fine — So Far, Kaiser Health News Lawsuit Over a Suicide Points to a Risk of Antidepressants, The New York Times The Download, MIT Technology Review Thank God You People Don’t Have The Nuclear Codes, FiveThirtyEight Where Pain Lives, AEON   Waving Hello to Noninvasive Deep-Brain Stimulation, New England Journal of Medicine Reactivations of Emotional Memory in the Hippocampus–Amygdala System During Sleep, Nature Neuroscience Distinct Processing of Ambiguous Speech in People with Non-Clinical Auditory Verbal Hallucinations, Brain Maternal Gut Bacteria Promote Neurodevelopmental Abnormalities in Mouse Offspring, Nature

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

"Deep Brain Stimulation Through the “Lens of Agency”: Clarifying Threats to Personal Identity from Neurological Intervention"

"Deep Brain Stimulation Through the “Lens of Agency”: Clarifying Threats to Personal Identity from Neurological Intervention" by Eliza Goddard has been published in the most recent issue of Neuroethics:

Abstract

This paper explores the impacts of neurological intervention on selfhood with reference to recipients’ claims about changes to their self-understanding following Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) for treatment of Parkinson’s Disease. In the neuroethics literature, patients’ claims such as: “I don’t feel like myself anymore” and “I feel like a machine”, are often understood as expressing threats to identity. In this paper I argue that framing debates in terms of a possible threat to identity—whether for or against the proposition, is mistaken and occludes what is ethically salient in changes from DBS. Rather, by adopting a relational narrative approach to identity and autonomy, I show that the ethically salient issue from DBS is impacts on autonomous agency—whether one’s actions and beliefs are one’s own, and how DBS may hinder, or foster, embodied, relational autonomy competences. This approach recognizes that if sufficiently significant, impacts on autonomy competences may pose a threat to one’s ability to contribute to the process of authoring one’s own life and so pose a threat to identity formation. I argue this approach resolves the confusion in the literature about whether and how DBS threatens identity and provides a complex picture of how DBS may affect selfhood by disrupting narrative identity formation and revision, distorting agency and/or undermining autonomy.

"Mental Health and False Confessions"

Recently posted on SSRN: "Mental Health and False Confessions" 

WILLIAM C. FOLLETTE, University of Nevada, Reno

RICHARD A. LEO, University of San Francisco - School of Law

DEBORAH DAVIS, University of Nevada, Reno

Abstract:

This chapter reviews various mental disorders and discusses how the vulnerabilities that are typical of these disorders multiply the effectiveness of the interrogation tactics that produce coerced confessions and increases the risk of eliciting false and unreliable confessions. The chapter also describes how attorneys can use scholarship about false confessions to explain to courts and juries how and why coerced and false confessions occur and their effect in the American criminal justice system.

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Get A Six Pack With Neuroscience: Modius, A Head-Worn Gadget That Helps You Burn Fat (Review), Forbes   Brain researchers in uproar over NIH clinical-trials policy, Nature News Are There Optical Communication Channels in Our Brains? MIT Technology Review Is There a "Female" Brain? Scientific American Computer knows how much pain you are in by studying your face, New Scientist The Neuroethics Blog Series on Black Mirror: White Bear, The Neuroethics Blog  Being Bored at Work Is Actually a Good Thing, Research Says, TIME: Money Nature videos help to calm inmates in solitary confinement, Nature News Don’t Trust Animal Characters to Teach Your Kids Morals, Discover: Inkfish It took these monkeys just 13 years to learn how to crack nuts, New Scientist The Link Between Animal Abuse and Murder, The Atlantic Seeing is believing (unfortunately): A project designed to study visually induced fear, SCOPE by Stanford Medicine Some blind people use bat-like echolocation, Discover: Seriously, Science? Stop pretending you really know what AI is and read this instead, Quartz  Visit the Center for Neuroscience & Society to learn, develop and carry out your research!​ Center for Neuroscience & Society, University of Pennsylvania   Neuroethics: Anticipating the future, Oxford University Press Short-term language switching training tunes the neural correlates of cognitive control in bilingual language production, Human Brain Mapping  Laughter as a Neurochemical Mechanism Aimed at Reinforcing Social Bonds: Integrating Evidence from Opioidergic Activity and Brain Stimulation, The Journal of Neuroscience A Kantian ethics approach to moral bioenhancement, Bioethics Neuroscience: From embryo mutation to adult degeneration, Nature

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

PEBS Neuroethics Roundup (JHU)

Just Released: Neuroethics: Anticipating the Future, Neuroethics at the Core     Get A Six Pack With Neuroscience: Modius, A Head-Worn Gadget That Helps You Burn Fat (Review), Forbes Neuroscientist harnesses the power of virtual reality to unlock the mysteries of memory, UCLA Newsroom Brain stimulation can boost creativity – but could it also help you hear inspirational voices? The Conversation  NFL dedicates large portion of $100 million pledge to neuroscience, CS Monitor  How neuroscience helps to advance machine learning, Medical Xpress The biggest myth about our brains is that they are “male” or “female”, Quartz Use neuroscience to convince your boss to let you nap at work, Mashable Neurons That Recognize Tone Identified, The Scientist  Brain Injury and the Civil Right We Don’t Think About, The New York Times What can neuroethicists learn from public attitudes about moral bioenhancement? The Neuroethics Blog   Lhx6-positive GABA-releasing neurons of the zona incerta promote sleep, Nature Neuroscience: From embryo mutation to adult degeneration, Nature Genome Stability by DNA Polymerase β in Neural Progenitors Contributes to Neuronal Differentiation in Cortical Development, Journal of Neuroscience Intonational speech prosody encoding in the human auditory cortex, Science

Subscribe to our mailing list The Program in Ethics and Brain Sciences (PEBS) is a collaborative effort of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins Brain Sciences Institute . The goal of PEBS is to ensure that research in brain science proceeds with an informed understanding of ethical issues, and that philosophical and empirical analyses of the advances in brain research proceed with an informed understanding of the science.

 

"Crime, Punishment, and Causation: The Effect of Etiological Information on the Perception of Moral Agency"

Recently posted on SSRN: "Crime, Punishment, and Causation: The Effect of Etiological Information on the Perception of Moral Agency" 

Philip Robbins, University of Missouri - Department of Philosophy

Paul Litton, University of Missouri School of Law

Abstract:

Moral judgments about a situation are profoundly shaped by the perception of individuals in that situation as either moral agents or moral patients (Gray & Wegner, 2009; Gray, Young, & Waytz, 2012). Specifically, the more we see someone as a moral agent, the less we see them as a moral patient, and vice versa. As a result, casting the perpetrator of a transgression as a victim tends to have the effect of making them seem less blameworthy (Gray & Wegner, 2011). Based on this theoretical framework, we predicted that criminal offenders with a mental disorder that predisposes them to antisocial behavior would be judged more negatively when the disorder is described as having a genetic origin than when it is described as environmentally caused, as in the case of childhood abuse or accident. Further, we predicted that some environmental explanations would mitigate attributions of blame more than others, namely, that offenders whose disorder was caused by childhood abuse (intentional harm) would be seen as less blameworthy than offenders whose disorder is caused by an unfortunate accident (unintentional harm). Results from two vignette-based studies designed to test these predictions, conducted with participants recruited from Amazon Mechanical Turk (N = 244 and N = 387, respectively), confirmed the first prediction but not the second. Implications of this research for three areas — the psychology of moral judgment, philosophical debates about moral responsibility and determinism, and the practice of the law — are discussed in the sequel.