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By Nada Gligorov Nada Gligorov is an associate professor in the  Bioethics Program of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai . She is also faculty for the  Clarkson University-Icahn School of Medicine Bioethics Masters Program . The primary focus of Nada’s scholarly work is the examination of the interaction between commonsense and scientific theories. Most recently, she authored of a monograph titled  Neuroethics and the Scientific Revision of Common Sense  (Studies in Brain and Mind, Springer). In 2014, Nada founded the  Working Papers in Ethics and Moral Psychology speaker series –a working group where speakers are invited to present well-developed, as yet unpublished work. Within the debate on neuroenhancement, cognitive and moral enhancements have been discussed as two different kinds of improvements achievable by different biomedical means. Pharmacological means that improve memory, attention, decision-making, or wakefulness have been accorded the sta...

By Sunidhi Ramesh Image courtesy of Pexels . Humans in the 21st century have an intimate relationship with technology. Much of our lives are spent being informed and entertained by screens. Technological advancements in science and medicine have helped and healed in ways we previously couldn’t dream of. But what unanticipated consequences may be lurking behind our rapid expansion into new technological territory? This question is continually being explored in the British sci-fi TV series  Black Mirror , which provides a glimpse into the not-so-distant future and warns us to be mindful of how we treat our technology and how it can affect us in return. This piece is part of a series of posts that will discuss ethical issues surrounding neuro-technologies featured in the show and will compare how similar technologies are impacting us in the real world.  SPOILER ALERT: The following contains plot spoilers for the Netflix television series,  Black Mirror .  Plot Summary “...

By Julia Haas Julia Haas is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Philosophy at Rhodes College. Her research focuses on theories of valuation and choice. Imagine a shopper named Barbara in the pasta aisle of her local market.  Just as she reaches for her favorite brand of pasta, she remembers that one of the company's senior executives made a homophobic statement . What should she do? She likes the brand's affordability and flavor but prefers to buy from companies that support LGBTQ communities . Barbara then notices that a typically more expensive brand of pasta is on sale and buys a package of that instead. Notably, she doesn't decide what brand of pasta she will buy in the future. Barbara’s deliberation reflects a common form of human choice. It also raises a number of questions for moral psychological theories of normative cognition. How do human beings make choices involving normative dimensions? Why do normative principles affect individuals differen...

By Katie Strong, PhD If you haven’t already, be sure to read the 6.3 Issue of AJOB Neuroscience , our special issue on The Social Brain guest edited by Dr. Jean Decety . The issue centers on the biological, neuroscientific, and clinical evidence for human social cognition, along with the philosophical and ethical arguments for modifying morality and social emotions and behaviors, such as empathy, trust, and cooperativity. The first target article by Jean Decety and Jason M. Cowell entitled “Empathy, Justice, and Moral Behavior” argues that despite the importance of empathy for driving our social lives, forging necessary social bonds, and making complex decisions, empathy alone is not enough in regards to moral resolutions and judgements. While empathy underpins cooperativity and the formation of social bonds, empathy has evolved to promote bias and in-group social preferences. The target article provides evidence that empathy does not always lead to moral decisions, and empathy ofte...

by Keenan Davis The following post is part of a special series emerging from Contemporary Issues in Neuroethics, a graduate-level course out of Emory University’s Center for Ethics. Keenan is a graduate student in Bioethics, whose work focuses on the use of virtue ethics and natural law to evaluate novel biotechnologies. He will be pursuing a PhD in the Graduate Division of Religion in the fall. What should I be doing with my life? Many approach this timeless question by considering first another: Who am I? For a wide range thinkers from Plato to Dr. Phil , we can only know what to do with ourselves when we truly know ourselves. Who we are determines and constrains how we ought to behave. For example, because my parents caused me to exist, I should behave towards them with a level of gratitude and love. Perhaps through a cause-and-effect dynamic, as a result of being their son, I should treat them respectfully. We will return to this example at the conclusion of our exploration. Hist...

Last month, as a recipient of the Emory Neuroethics Program Neuroethics Travel Award , I had the wonderful opportunity of attending the International Neuroethics Society Annual Meeting in San Diego, California. The conference brought together leading neuroethics scholars from around the world and focused on the themes of moral enhancement, disorders of consciousness, and the role of neuroscience in the courtroom. (The conference was structured around three star-studded panels. For a full program, please visit here . For full videos of the panels, please visit here .) There were also five oral presentations and a poster session. As part of the event, I exhibited a poster entitled “Revising Weakness of Will: A Reply to Neil Levy,” where I challenged Levy’s use of the theory of ego depletion as an explanation of weakness of will and provided an alternate, neurocomputational account. Presenting my poster at INS. Photo credit: Karen Rommelfanger As a philosopher interested in th...

Dr. Frans de Waal By Frans de Waal, Ph.D. Frans de Waal is the Charles Howard Candler Professor of Primate Behavior at Emory University and the Director of the Living Links Center at the Yerkes National Primate Research Center . He is also a member of the United States National Academy of Sciences and the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences and a member of the AJOB Neuroscience editorial board. His research focuses on primate social behavior, including conflict resolution, cooperation, inequality aversion, and food-sharing.  At a recent workshop on "Beastly Morality" (April 5, 2013, Emory Ethics Center), which drew participants from all over the country, I asked an innocent question. We had about sixty scholars presenting or listening to academic papers on the human-animal relationship or the place of animals in literature, and I asked how many of them worked with animals on a daily basis. The answer: no one. It was a naive question, because if I had expected half of...