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by Dr. Hannah Maslen  Hannah Maslen  is a Research Fellow in Ethics at the Oxford Martin School and the Oxford Uehiro  Centre for Practical Ethics. She currently works on the Oxford Martin Programme on Mind and Machine, where she examines the ethical, legal, and social implications of various brain intervention and interface technologies, from brain stimulation devices to virtual reality.  This post is part of a series that recaps and offers perspectives on the conversations and debates that took place at the recent 2015 International Neuroethics Society meeting. In its Gray Matters report, the United States Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues underscored the importance of integrating ethics and neuroscience early and throughout the research endeavor.  In particular, the Commission declared:  "As we anticipate personal and societal implications of using such technologies, ethical considerations must be further deliberated.   Ex...

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues is an advisory panel that counsels the President on bioethical issues in light of scientific and medical advances. Most recently, the panel published Gray Matters: Integrative Approaches for Neuroscience, Ethics, and Society as a part of the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative . This document touched on relevant ethical issues related to neuroscience and made recommendations for integrating ethics into various facets of neuroscience research, education, and policy making. On June 9–10, 2014, a public meeting of the President’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues will be taking place at Emory University in the Rollins School of Public Health Building. The complete agenda is listed here , but the Commission will discuss the BRAIN Initiative and current work taking place in the field of neuroscience. Watch the live webcast and follow AJOB Neuroscience on Twitter if yo...

Who’d believe there’s a liberal professor (he freely acknowledges he belongs to this group) that’s willing to admit that conservatives might be right about something? Don't get too excited; he also thinks the reasoning that many conservatives use to decide what’s right is all wrong. What’s more, he thinks that neuroscience proves the way that many conservatives reason is wrong. The professor, Dr. John Banja , led a discussion of one of his articles last Wednesday at the second meeting of the Neuroethics Journal Club hosted by the Neuroethics Program at the Emory Center for Ethics. I had this great idea to summarize Dr. Banja's message with music videos. It turned out to be harder than I thought (but I'm still peppering this post with pop)--there is not one song that has the words "virtue essentialism" in the title, although those words are in the title of Dr. Banja’s article: “ Virtue Essentialism, Prototypes, and the Moral Conservative Opposition to Enhancement T...