Kathinka Evers: On 'Responsible Neuroethics' and Neuro-rubbish
In March 2012, Roger Scruton published an article in The Spectator entitled ‘ Brain Drain ,’ in which he lamented the fact that traditionally humanistic disciplines are increasingly taking neuroscientific findings into account. He characterized the phenomenon as one of “neuroenvy,” - with humanists simply jumping onto the neuroscience bandwagon - and argued that when scholars in the humanities “add the prefix ‘neuro’ to their studies, we should expect their researches to be nonsense.” [1] My first thought was, ‘Oh, for the love of…’ Actually, we prefer the term 'neuro-rubbish.' Fortunately, just as I was shaking my head over Scruton’s article, I came across a response by Swedish philosopher Pär Segerdahl , who cited his colleague, Kathinka Evers, as someone whose work serves as a perfect counterexample to Scruton’s point of view. Segerdahl described Evers as a philosopher committed to “a responsible form of neuroethics: one that does not translate ethics into neuro-jargon, bu...