Neuroethics: Discussions about the Subject

Abstract

The term “neuroethics” emerged in the 1970s denoting medical ethics in neuroscience. The development of neuro-turn in philosophical studies, beginning of wide empirical research in neurobiology and cognitive science and rise of public interest in brain studies in the first decade of the 21st century caused the emergence of neuroethics as an independent research field. The questions of definition the subject area, methodology, priority directions and conceptual foundations of neuroethics still remain as the subjects of discussions nowadays. The main modern approaches to understanding the subject of neuroethics are reported in the article. The authors of the article propose to interpret neuroethics as a metadiscipline and highlight four approaches of it. A. Roskies divides neuroethics into two fields of study: the ethics of neuroscience and the neuroscience of ethics. This approach is refined in modern research. The article reveals that neuroethics can be understood as a description of the neural correlates of moral action; as an assessment of the ethics of research and therapeutic interventions in the brain; as a critical understanding of social practices based on knowledge of brain functioning or the usage of neurotechnology; as an analysis of the social consequences of the neurotechnologies development. The authors note that neuroethics still has a status of an “emerging field”, which makes the analysis of its development an independent research task.