Brain-Computer Interface (BCI) research and (future) applications raise important ethical issues that need to be addressed to promote societal acceptance and adequate policies. Here we report on a survey we conducted among 145 BCI researchers at the 4th International BCI conference, which took place in May–June 2010 in Asilomar, California. We assessed respondents’ opinions about a number of topics. First, we investigated preferences for terminology and definitions relating to BCIs. Second, we assessed respondents’ expectations on the marketability of different BCI (...) applications (BCIs for healthy people, BCIs for assistive technology, BCIs-controlled neuroprostheses and BCIs as therapy tools). Third, we investigated opinions about ethical issues related to BCI research for the development of assistive technology: informed consent process with locked-in patients, risk-benefit analyses, team responsibility, consequences of BCI on patients’ and families’ lives, liability and personal identity and interaction with the media. Finally, we asked respondents which issues are urgent in BCI research. (shrink)

This paper uses the fictional case of the ‘Babel fish’ to explore and illustrate the issues involved in the controversy about the use of cochlear implants in prelinguistically deaf children. Analysis of this controversy suggests that the development of genetic tests for deafness poses a serious threat to the continued flourishing of Deaf culture. I argue that the relationships between Deaf and hearing cultures that are revealed and constructed in debates about genetic testing are themselves deserving of ethical evaluation. Making (...) good policy about genetic testing for deafness will require addressing questions in political philosophy and anthropology about the value of culture and also thinking hard about what sorts of experiences and achievements make a human life worthwhile. (shrink)

In The Public and Its Problems, a classic of social and political philosophy, John Dewey exhibits his strong faith in the potential of human intelligence to solve the public's problems. In his characteristic provocative style, Dewey clarifies the meaning and implications of such concepts as "the public," "the state," "government," and "political democracy." He distinguishes his a posterior reasoning from a priori reasoning, which, he argues permeates less meaningful discussion of basic concepts. Dewey repeatedly demonstrates the interrelationships between fact and (...) theory. (shrink)

Focusing on the interactions between people suffering from neuromuscular diseases and their wheelchairs, the author raises the question of action: how is action made possible for people suffering from neuromuscular diseases? Starting with actor-network theory, the author shows that action not only results from distribution and delegation to heterogeneous entities but emerges from hard and lengthy work that makes the relation between them possible and transforms the entities involved. The author describes this work, called the process of adjustment, as work (...) on the links making a person, his or her body, and his or her world. Through this work, new possibilities of action emerge for the person, but also new abilities; the person’s identity is transformed and shaped. This analysis leads to a particular conception of the person as made up through his or her relations to other entities. (shrink)

There is a growing call for greater public involvement in establishing science and technology policy, in line with democratic ideals. A variety of public participation procedures exist that aim to consult and involve the public, ranging from the public hearing to the consensus conference. Unfortunately, a general lack of empirical consideration of the quality of these methods arises from confusion as to the appropriate benchmarks for evaluation. Given that the quality of the output of any participation exercise is difficult to (...) determine, the authors suggest the need to consider which aspects of the process are desirable and then to measure the presence or quality of these process aspects. To this end, a number of theoretical evaluation criteria that are essential for effective public participation are specified. These comprise two types: acceptance criteria, which concern features of a method that make it acceptable to the wider public, and process criteria, which concern features of the process that are liable to ensure that it takes place in an effective manner. Future research needs to develop instruments to measure these criteria more precisely and identify the contextual and environmental factors that will mediate the effectiveness of the different participation methods. (shrink)

This article discusses a range of recent major surveys of public attitudes toward biotechnology. The authors identify a number of problematic features of the surveys: the use of predominantly consumerist rather than civic conception of public discourse; the assumption of a unitary "general public," a "cognitive deficit" approach to public understanding of science; and the presumption of a politically neutral and instrumental ist model of science and technology. The authors then examine some alternative ap proaches to exploring perceptions of biotechnology (...) among a diversity of interested publics, including more focused dialogical surveys, consensus conferences, and parlia mentary inquiries. (shrink)

Brain-Computer Interface is a set of technologies that are of increasing interest to researchers. BCI has been proposed as assistive technology for individuals who are non-communicative or paralyzed, such as those with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis or spinal cord injury. The technology has also been suggested for enhancement and entertainment uses, and there are companies currently marketing BCI devices for those purposes as well as health-related purposes. The unprecedented direct connection created by BCI between human brains and computer hardware raises various (...) ethical, social, and legal challenges that merit further examination and discussion. To identify and characterize the key issues associated with BCI use, we performed a scoping review of biomedical ethics literature, analyzing the ethics concerns cited across multiple disciplines, including philosophy and medicine. Based on this investigation, we report that BCI research and its potential translation to therapeutic intervention generate significant ethical, legal, and social concerns, notably with regards to personhood, stigma, autonomy, privacy, research ethics, safety, responsibility, and justice. Our review of the literature determined, furthermore, that while these issues have been enumerated extensively, few concrete recommendations have been expressed. We conclude that future research should focus on remedying a lack of practical solutions to the ethical challenges of BCI, alongside the collection of empirical data on the perspectives of the public, BCI users, and BCI researchers. (shrink)

The inherence heuristic offers modest insights into the complex nature of both the is–oughttension in moral reasoning and moral reasoning per se, and does not reflect the complexity of domain-specific moral heuristics. Formal and general in nature, we contextualize the process described as “inherence heuristic” in a web of domain-specific heuristics.

The philosophy of medicine cum bioethics has become the socially recognized source for moral and epistemic direction in health-care decision-making. Over the last three decades, this field has been accepted politically as an authorized source of guidance for policy and law. The field's political actors have included the National Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects of Biomedical and Behavioral Research, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the President's Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical (...) and Behavioral Research , the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and the new Council on Bioethics; these groups and agencies have set forth rules on issues ranging from the role of humans in biomedical research to the production of human embryos for research, the definition of death, and the permissibility of human cloning. The members of the field are not just scholars and teachers in an academic realm directed to both theoretical and applied issues. They are, in addition, practitioners of a conceptual and moral trade that possesses a legal and political standing. This essay critically addresses the sudden emergence of bioethics as a societally recognized source of moral guidance, a source replete with authorized moral experts. Attention is directed to moral and conceptual assumptions that have led the philosophy of medicine, and especially bioethics, to acquire a quasi-juridical/political role in guiding clinical choices, framing health-care policy, and directing court holdings. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This article attempts to show a way in which social science research can contribute in a meaningful and equitable way to philosophical bioethics. It builds on the social science critique of bioethics present in the work of authors such as Renée Fox, Barry Hoffmaster and Charles Bosk, proposing the characteristics of a critical bioethics that would take social science seriously. The social science critique claims that traditional philosophical bioethics gives a dominant role to idealised, rational thought, and tends to (...) exclude social and cultural factors, relegating them to the status of irrelevancies. Another problem is the way in which bioethics assumes social reality divides down the same lines/categories as philosophical theories. Critical bioethics requires bioethicists to root their enquires in empirical research, to challenge theories using evidence, to be reflexive and to be sceptical about the claims of other bioethicists, scientists and clinicians. The aim is to produce a rigorous normative analysis of lived moral experience. (shrink)

Public bioethics bodies are used internationally as institutions with the declared aims of facilitating societal debate and providing policy advice in certain areas of scientific inquiry raising questions of values and legitimate science. In the United States, bioethical experts in these institutions use the language of consensus building to justify and define the outcome of the enterprise. However, the implications of public bioethics at science-policy boundaries are underexamined. Political interest in such bodies continues while their influence on societal consensus, public (...) debate, and science policy remains ambiguous. This article presents a theoretical discussion of public bioethics bodies as boundary organizations and examines them in terms of relationship to the moral and cognitive authority of science and other forms of expertise, mechanisms for public participation in controversial science policy, and the deployment of consensus models. The theoretical discussion is examined in the case of the U.S. Human Embryo Research Panel. (shrink)

Common understandings of neuroethics, i.e., of its distinctive nature, are premised on two distinct sets of claims: (1) neuroscience can change views about the nature of ethics itself and neuroethics is dedicated to reaping such an understanding of ethics; (2) neuroscience poses challenges distinct from other areas of medicine and science and neuroethics tackles those issues. Critiques have rightfully challenged both claims, stressing how the first may lead to problematic forms of reductionism while the second relies on debatable assumptions about (...) the nature of bioethics specialization and development. Informed by philosophical pragmatism and our experience in neuroethics, we argue that these claims are ill-founded and should give way to pragmatist reconstructions. Namely, neuroscience, much like other areas of empirical research on morality, can provide useful information about the nature of morally problematic situations but it does not need to promise radical and sweeping changes to ethics based on neuroscientism. Furthermore, the rationale for the development of neuroethics as a specialized field need not to be premised on the distinctive nature of the issues it tackles or of neurotechnologies. Rather, it can espouse an understanding of neuroethics as both a scholarly and a practical endeavor dedicated to resolving a series of problematic situations raised by neurological and psychiatric conditions. (shrink)

There is a growing literature in neuroethics dealing with the problem of cognitive neuroenhancement for healthy adults. However, discussions on this topic have tended to focus on abstract theoretical positions while concrete policy proposals and detailed models are scarce. Furthermore, discussions tend to rely solely on data from the US, while international perspectives are mostly neglected. Therefore, there is a need for a volume that deals with cognitive enhancement comprehensively in three important ways: a) with conceptual implications stemming from different (...) points of view; b) with ethical, social and legal perspectives that would not be limited to one part of the world but reflect on the current situation in countries in Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America; and c) with discussions of concrete law and policy options. Contributors for the conceptual implications section will elaborate an important general issue (e.g. ethical acceptability of direct-to-consumer-marketing in case of cognitive enhancement drugs). Contributors for international perspectives section will provide a clear discussion on normative issues and cultural values, along with an analysis of empirical data on public attitudes on cognitive enhancement and/or prevalence (specific to the country in question). Contributors for law and policy section will offer a justification for the general policy type they argue for (1. prohibition, 2. discourage use, 3. laissez-faire, 4. encourage use, and 5. mandatory use) in the case of specific cognitive enhancement measure. Furthermore, they would evaluate the possible impact of a detailed regulatory model on consumption and demand, fairness in competitive settings and the social pressure to enhance. (shrink)

We propose that human reasoning relies on an inherence heuristic, an implicit cognitive process that leads people to explain observed patterns (e.g., girls wear pink) in terms of the inherent features of their constituents (e.g., pink is an inherently feminine color). We then demonstrate how this proposed heuristic can provide a unified account for a broad set of findings spanning areas of research that might at first appear unrelated (e.g., system justification, nominal realism, is–ought errors in moral reasoning). By revealing (...) the deep commonalities among the diverse phenomena that fall under its scope, our account is able to generate new insights into these phenomena, as well as new empirical predictions. A second main goal of this paper, aside from introducing the inherence heuristic, is to articulate the proposal that the heuristic serves as a foundation for the development of psychological essentialism. More specifically, we propose that essentialism—which is the common belief that natural and social categories are underlain by hidden, causally powerful “essences”—emerges over the first few years of life as an elaboration of the earlier, and more open-ended, intuitions supplied by the inherence heuristic. In the final part of the paper, we distinguish our proposal from competing accounts (e.g., Strevens' K-laws) and clarify the relationship between the inherence heuristic and related cognitive tendencies (e.g., the correspondence bias). In sum, this paper illuminates a basic cognitive process that emerges early in life and is likely to have profound effects on many aspects of human psychology. (shrink)

If personhood is the quality or condition of being an individual person, brainhood could name the quality or condition of being a brain. This ontological quality would define the `cerebral subject' that has, at least in industrialized and highly medicalized societies, gained numerous social inscriptions since the mid-20th century. This article explores the historical development of brainhood. It suggests that the brain is necessarily the location of the `modern self', and that, consequently, the cerebral subject is the anthropological figure inherent (...) to modernity (at least insofar as modernity gives supreme value to the individual as autonomous agent of choice and initiative). It further argues that the ideology of brainhood impelled neuroscientific investigation much more than it resulted from it, and sketches how an expanding constellation of neurocultural discourses and practices embodies and sustains that ideology. (shrink)

Using a two-part instrument consisting of eight vignettes and twenty character traits, the study sampled 141 employees of a mid-west financial firm regarding their predispositions to prefer utilitarian or formalist forms of ethical reasoning. In contrast with earlier studies, we found that these respondents did not prefer utilitarian reasoning. Several other hypotheses were tested involving the relationship between people's preferences for certain types of solutions to issues and the forms of reasoning they use to arrive at those solutions; the nature (...) of the relationship between utilitarian and formalist categories ; and the possibility of measuring ethical predispositions using different methods. (shrink)

Brain–Computer Interface research is an interdisciplinary area of study within Neural Engineering. Recent interest in end-user perspectives has led to an intersection with user-centered design. The goal of user-centered design is to reduce the translational gap between researchers and potential end users. However, while qualitative studies have been conducted with end users of BCI technology, little is known about individual BCI researchers’ experience with and attitudes towards UCD. Given the scientific, financial, and ethical imperatives of UCD, we sought to gain (...) a better understanding of practical and principled considerations for researchers who engage with end users. We conducted a qualitative interview case study with neural engineering researchers at a center dedicated to the creation of BCIs. Our analysis generated five themes common across interviews. The thematic analysis shows that participants identify multiple beneficiaries of their work, including other researchers, clinicians working with devices, device end users, and families and caregivers of device users. Participants value experience with device end users, and personal experience is the most meaningful type of interaction. They welcome end-user input, but are skeptical of limited focus groups and case studies. They also recognize a tension between creating sophisticated devices and developing technology that will meet user needs. Finally, interviewees espouse functional, assistive goals for their technology, but describe uncertainty in what degree of function is “good enough” for individual end users. Based on these results, we offer preliminary recommendations for conducting future UCD studies in BCI and neural engineering. (shrink)

The handbook contains more than 50 chapters by leaders from around the world and a broad range of sectors of academia and clinical practice spanning the ...

With respect to questions of fact, people use heuristics – mental short-cuts, or rules of thumb, that generally work well, but that also lead to systematic errors. People use moral heuristics too – moral short-cuts, or rules of thumb, that lead to mistaken and even absurd moral judgments. These judgments are highly relevant not only to morality, but to law and politics as well. Examples are given from a number of domains, including risk regulation, punishment, reproduction and sexuality, and the (...) act/omission distinction. In all of these contexts, rapid, intuitive judgments make a great deal of sense, but sometimes produce moral mistakes that are replicated in law and policy. One implication is that moral assessments ought not to be made by appealing to intuitions about exotic cases and problems; those intuitions are particularly unlikely to be reliable. Another implication is that some deeply held moral judgments are unsound if they are products of moral heuristics. The idea of error-prone heuristics is especially controversial in the moral domain, where agreement on the correct answer may be hard to elicit; but in many contexts, heuristics are at work and they do real damage. Moral framing effects, including those in the context of obligations to future generations, are also discussed. (shrink)

Since its origin, bioethics has attracted the collaboration of few social scientists, and social scientific methods of gathering empirical data have remained unfamiliar to ethicists. Recently, however, the clouded relations between the empirical and normative perspectives on bioethics appear to be changing. Three reasons explain why there was no easy and consistent input of empirical evidence into bioethics. Firstly, interdisciplinary dialogue runs the risk of communication problems and divergent objectives. Secondly, the social sciences were absent partners since the beginning of (...) bioethics. Thirdly, the meta‐ethical distinction between ‘is’ and ‘ought’ created a ‘natural’ border between the disciplines. Now, bioethics tends to accommodate more empirical research. Three hypotheses explain this emergence. Firstly, dissatisfaction with a foundationalist interpretation of applied ethics created a stimulus to incorporate empirical research in bioethics. Secondly, clinical ethicists became engaged in empirical research due to their strong integration in the medical setting. Thirdly, the rise of the evidence‐based paradigm had an influence on the practice of bioethics. However, a problematic relationship cannot simply and easily evolve into a perfect interaction. A new and positive climate for empirical approaches has arisen, but the original difficulties have not disappeared. (shrink)

The application of neurostimulation techniques such as deep brain stimulation —often called a brain pacemaker for neurological conditions like Parkinson's disease —has generated “currents of hope.” Building on this hope, there is significant interest in applying neurostimulation to psychiatric disorders such as major depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. These emerging neurosurgical practices raise a number of important ethical and social questions in matters of resource allocation, informed consent for vulnerable populations, and commercialization of research.

In this paper, dimensions of the debate surrounding the application of gene technology to food production are discussed and a study assessing perceptions of the technology among a sample of the UK public (n = 1499) is reported. The general picture that emerges from the study is one of people expressing low familiarity with the technology, with more people associating it with high risks than with low risks, and more people expecting it to provide low benefits than high benefits. Attitudes (...) towards different applications vary significantly, as does trust in different potential sources of information about the technology. It is also shown that attitudes can be predicted not only by estimates of risks and benefits but also by perceptions of the involvement of ethical issues, by the perceived need for the technology, and by the perceived likelihood of improvements it is likely to bring to the quality of life in the UK. The results are discussed in the context of the need for greater public information about the technology and the realization that communication of risks takes place within a complex network of societal relationships. (shrink)

An important discussion in contemporary ethics concerns the relevance of empirical research for ethics. Specifically, two crucial questions pertain, respectively, to the possibility of inferring normative statements from descriptive statements, and to the danger of a loss of normativity if normative statements should be based on empirical research. Here we take part in the debate and defend integrated empirical ethical research: research in which normative guidelines are established on the basis of empirical research and in which the guidelines are empirically (...) evaluated by focusing on observable consequences. We argue that in our concrete example normative statements are not derived from descriptive statements, but are developed within a process of reflection and dialogue that goes on within a specific praxis. Moreover, we show that the distinction in experience between the desirable and the undesirable precludes relativism. The normative guidelines so developed are both critical and normative: they help in choosing the right action and in evaluating that action. Finally, following Aristotle, we plead for a return to the view that morality and ethics are inherently related to one another, and for an acknowledgment of the fact that moral judgments have their origin in experience which is always related to historical and cultural circumstances. (shrink)

This article proposes a novel integrative approach to moral judgment and a related model that could explain how unconscious heuristic processes are transformed into consciously accessible moral intuitions. Different hypothetical cases have been tested empirically to evoke moral intuitions that support principles from competing moral theories. We define and analyze the types of intuitions that moral theories and studies capture: those focusing on agents (A), deeds (D), and consequences (C). The integrative ADC approach uses the heuristic principle of “attribute substitution” (...) to explain how people make intuitive judgments. The target attributes of moral judgments are moral blameworthiness and praiseworthiness, which are substituted with more accessible and computable information about an agent's virtues and vices, right/wrong deeds, and good/bad consequences. The processes computing this information are unconscious and inaccessible, and therefore explaining how they provide input for moral intuitions is a key problem. We analyze social heuristics identified in the literature and offer an outline for a new model of moral judgment. Simple social heuristics triggered by morally salient cues rely on three distinct processes (role-model entity, action analysis, and consequence tallying—REACT) in order to compute the moral valence of specific intuitive responses (A, D, and C). These are then rapidly combined to form an intuitive judgment that could guide quick decision making. The ADC approach and REACT model can clarify a wide set of data from empirical moral psychology and could inform future studies on moral judgment, as well as case assessments and discussions about issues causing “deadlocked” moral intuitions. (shrink)

Neural engineering technologies such as implanted deep brain stimulators and brain-computer interfaces represent exciting and potentially transformative tools for improving human health and well-being. Yet their current use and future prospects raise a variety of ethical and philosophical concerns. Devices that alter brain function invite us to think deeply about a range of ethical concerns—identity, normality, authority, responsibility, privacy, and justice. If a device is stimulating my brain while I decide upon an action, am I still the author of the (...) action? Does a device make the interiority of my experience accessible to others? Will the device change the way I think of myself and others think of me? Such fundamental questions arise even when a device is designed for only a relatively circumscribed purpose, such as restoring functioning via a smart prosthetic. We are part of a National Science Foundation-funded Engineering Research Center tasked with investigating philosophical and social implications of neural engineering research and technologies. Neural devices already in clinical use, such as deep brain stimulators for Parkinson's disease or essential tremor, have spurred healthy debate about such implications. Devices currently under development—such as the BrainGate System of implanted brain sensors coupled to robotics in persons with paralysis, exoskeletons for augmented movement, transcranial do-it-yourself stimulators, closed-loop brain stimulating systems, or even brain-to-brain interfacing—promise to extend and deepen these debates. At our center, brain-computer interfaces are the principal focus of work. Even acknowledging that the clinical translation of neural devices and seamless integration by end users may still largely reside in the future, the potential these devices hold calls for careful early analysis. The launching of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative in April 2013 provides further impetus for this work. (shrink)