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By Peter Reiner Dr. Reiner is Professor and co-founder of the  National Core for Neuroethics  at the University of British Columbia where he is a member of the  Department of Psychiatry  and the  Centre for Brain Health . Dr. Reiner began his research career studying the cellular and molecular physiology of the brain, with particular interests in the neurobiology of behavioural states and the molecular underpinnings of neurodegenerative disease. In 1998, Dr. Reiner became President and CEO of Active Pass Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery company that he founded to tackle the scourge of Alzheimer's disease. Upon returning to academic life in 2004, Dr. Reiner refocused his scholarly work in the area of neuroethics, co-founding the National Core for Neuroethics with Dr. Judy Illes in 2007. Dr. Reiner has championed quantitative analysis of public attitudes towards diverse issues in neuroethics including the propriety of cognitive and moral enhancement, the contours...

*Editor's note: Jason Shepard was one of Emory Neuroethics Program's inaugural graduate Neuroethics Scholars. His co-authored manuscript mentioned below is related to his Scholar's project. Recently, the question of whether our notions of free will, along with whether our responsibility-holding practices that appear to be based on free will, can survive in light of discoveries from the behavioral and brain sciences was named as one of the Top Ten Philosophical Issues of the 21st Century . The interest in free will and how discoveries in neuroscience and psychology affect our beliefs and attitudes about free will extends well beyond the halls of philosophy departments. The topic has also attracted a lot of interest from neuroscientists, biologists, and psychologists [1]. And, of course, these very debates are of central interest to neuroethicists. The wide range of interests in these debates is a symptom of the fact that these debates matter: The debate over what people bel...

By Peter Reiner, VMD, PhD Dr. Reiner is Professor in the National Core for Neuroethics , a member of the Kinsmen Laboratory of Neurological Research , Department of Psychiatry and the Brain Research Centre at the University of British Columbia, and a member of the AJOB Neuroscience Editorial Board. Four years ago, Neil Levy gave the concluding lecture at the first Brain Matters conference in Halifax. He alerted the audience of neuroethicists to the fact that the field of philosophy was undergoing a revolution – rather than muse from their armchairs in the ivory tower, a group of renegade philosophers were carrying out real experiments, asking people what their intuitions were about central issues in philosophy. Dubbed experimental philosophy , the new initiative was met with more than passing resistance from traditional philosophers. The apostate experimental philosophers responded by developing a logo of a burning armchair . Photo credit: Timothy Epp, Shutterstock The landmark e...