Neuroethics: Some Relevant Philosophical and Methodological Issues

Abstract

I distinguish two main aspects of neuroethics in the article: neuroscientific studies of ethically significant properties of consciousness and the tasks of ethical regulation and ethical control of modern neuroscience studies of consciousness and the brain. Next, three topical issues are discussed regarding the designated aspects of neuroethics: (1) Ethical problems in the area of neuroscience research, called Brain-Reading, which deals with the determination of brain correlates of psychic phenomena and the deciphering of their neurodynamic codes. There are acute ethical and social issues questions about the legitimacy of the invasion of the subjective world of the personality, which require a thorough discussion. (2) Neuroscientific and genetic studies of the phenomenon of deception as a factor of interpersonal and social communications, emphasizes the importance of taking into account various forms of deception and the corresponding dispositional properties of consciousness, the experience of neuroscientific research of these properties and those dispositional properties that determine the installation of the truth and the realization of high moral qualities of a person is shown. The ethical legitimacy of exposing malicious fraud using neuroscientific methods, especially in cases of criminal acts, is shown. (3) Critically analyzed are attempts to deny free will through references to neuroscience research. The issue of free will is the key to ethics. The bankruptcy of several currently fashionable concepts that deny free will and thereby contribute to the spread of moral relativism is shown.