From the breakdown of psychiatry during nazism and the Nuremberg Code, to the materialist neuropsychological model in contemporary science and society: A bioethical analysis

Abstract

The breakdown of German psychiatry with the coming to power of the National Socialist regime in 1933 resulted in a revival after the war of bioethical issues, the immediate effect of which was the enactment of the Nuremberg Code. In many ways, this breakdown was the result of the historical evolution of psychomedical knowledge and the mass dissemination of reductionist discourses and ideas that created a breeding ground for tragedy. The cyclical discourse of psychic materialism, which has been repeated for centuries in the history of science in different formulations, can, if not properly interpreted, lead to far-reaching appropriations and risks, to which due attention must be paid. The latest manifestation of this issue, the view of mental life as basically cerebral, neurological, biochemical, and determinist, a view that has not been managed or presented adequately to the public, could become the basis for perverse new perspectives and applications in the current context of research and academic activity.