An increasingly central part of the scientific debate in sports has come to focus on how neuroscience can help to explain sports performance and development of expertise. In particular, the process...

In the debate on the ethics of the non-medical use of pharmaceuticals for cognitive performance enhancement in healthy individuals there is a clear division between those who view “cognitive enhancement” as ethically unproblematic and those who see such practices as fraught with ethical problems. Yet another, more subtle issue, relates to the relevance and quality of the contribution of scholarly bioethics to this debate. More specifically, how have various forms of speculation, anticipatory ethics, and methods to predict scientific trends and (...) societal responses augmented or diminished this contribution? In this paper, we use the discussion of the ethics of cognitive enhancement to explore the positive and negative contribution of speculation in bioethics scholarship. First, we review and discuss how speculation has relied on different sets of assumptions regarding the non-medical use of stimulants, namely: terminology and framing; scientific aspects such as efficacy and safety; estimates of prevalence and consequent normalization; and the need for normative reflection and regulatory guidelines. Second, three methodological guideposts are proposed to alleviate some of the pitfalls of speculation: acknowledge assumptions more explicitly and identify the value attributed to assumptions; validate assumptions with interdisciplinary literature; and adopt a broad perspective to promote more comprehensive reflection. We conclude that, through the examination of the controversy about cognitive enhancement, we can employ these methodological guideposts to enhance the value of contributions from bioethics and minimize potential epistemic and practical pitfalls in this case and perhaps in other areas of bioethical debate. (shrink)

A rapidly emerging hegemonic neuro-culture and a booming neural subjectivity signal the entry point for an inquiry into the status of the signifier neuro as a universal passe-partout. The wager of this paper is that the various appropriations of the neurosciences in the media and in academia itself point to something essential, if not structural, in connection with both the discipline of the neurosciences and the current socio-cultural and ideological climate. Starting from the case of neuroeducation, the genealogy of the (...) neurological turn is linked to the history of psychology and its inextricable bond with processes of psychologisation. If the neurological turn risks not merely neglecting the dimension of critique, but also obviating its possibility, then revivifying a psy-critique might be necessary in order to understand today’s neural subjectivity and its place within current biopolitics. (shrink)

This paper introduces the motivation and idea behind the recently founded interdisciplinary initiative Critical Neuroscience ( http://www.critical-neuroscience.org ). Critical Neuroscience is an approach that strives to understand, explain, contextualize, and, where called for, critique developments in and around the social, affective, and cognitive neurosciences with the aim to create the competencies needed to responsibly deal with new challenges and concerns emerging in relation to the brain sciences. It addresses scholars in the humanities as well as, importantly, neuroscientific practitioners, policy makers, (...) and the public at large. Does neuroscience indeed have such wide-ranging effects or are we collectively overestimating its impacts at the expense of other important drivers of social and cultural change? Via what channels is neuroscience interacting with contemporary conceptions of selfhood, identity, and well-being? Importantly, Critical Neuroscience strives to make the results of these assessments relevant to scientific practice itself. It aspires to motivate neuroscientists to be involved in the analysis of contextual factors, historical trajectories, conceptual difficulties, and potential consequences in connection to their empirical work. This paper begins to spell out a philosophical foundation for the project by outlining examples of the interaction taking place between the neurosciences and the social and cultural contexts in which they are embedded and by exposing some of the assumptions and argumentative patterns underlying dominant approaches. Recent anthropological work will be discussed to convey a sense of the de facto interactions between neuroscientific knowledge, its promissory projections, and the self-understandings of laypeople. This can be seen as a first step towards a phenomenology of the “seductive allure” that the neurosciences are exerting upon both the academic and the popular imagination. The concept of “critique” relevant to the project's overall orientation is outlined in the final section. (shrink)