Editor’s note: This is a review of two papers given at the recent conference “Brain, Mind, and Society: The Future of Neuroethics” that was held at the SMU Maguire Center. Dr. Paul Churchland was UT Dallas’s choice of speaker for that conference.
New neurotechnologies offer a host of benefits and risks which, in turn, poses a set of ethical questions. Are humans “hard-wired” to respond in certain ways to moral challenges? Dr. Churchland argues that this is not the case. He suggests that moral cognition is constantly evolving. Rules do not guide behavior, acquired wisdom guides behavior. Every person slowly acquires moral knowledge over a long period of time and this knowledge is embodied in synaptic connections that make sense of patterns and adjust accordingly. But if, for the sake of argument, humans are “hard-wired” to act or react in certain ways, this raises additional questions about free will, moral responsibility, and legal culpability. If there is a biological or neurological reason for a person’s deviant behavior, should that person be forced to bear the legal repercussions of his/her actions? The tumor made me do it. Is that a viable excuse? What if neuroimaging could ascertain, with a reasonable degree of certainty, which individuals would be predisposed toward criminality? What then? The capacity to “predict crime,” if such a thing is even possible, could lead to genetic discrimination among other things. GINA (Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act), passed in 2008, prohibits the improper use of genetic information in health insurance and employment. This is a step in the right direction. Whether this legislation is effective is another matter.
As Dr. Metzinger points out, the field of neuroethics raises all sorts of issues about equal opportunity and distributive justice, autonomy and cognitive liberty, and authenticity and personality. If new types of cognitive enhancements were available, who should have access to these technologies? The deserving, the disadvantaged, the privileged, or none of these groups? Whatever the case, the new technologies would advantage those with access and others would be pressured to follow, something Dr. Metzinger refers to as indirect coercion. Certain groups, the military for instance, might be forced to take experimental drugs (psychostimulants in particular). Sleep deprivation is a perennial problem of the military. Within the past decade, the drug Modafinil (marketed as Provigil) was approved by FDA to alleviate daytime tiredness in individuals suffering from conditions like narcolepsy and sleep apnea. Not surprisingly, this drug was of interest to the military because the people taking Modafinil showed little to no evidence of degraded performance after 40 hours without sleep. Of course, there is always the risk that these enhancements could be abused by groups with nefarious intentions… in fact, one might say that it is inevitable. A society addicted to caffeine would, no doubt, be covetous of a drug that allows for a 24/7 lifestyle. Yet, these enhancements could be also advantageous to those who work long hours in a life-or-death job/profession (the armed forces and medical personnel). Dr. Metzinger ended his lecture with a reflection on the curious nature of enhancement. He astutely observes: for everything, there is a price. Hence the term: dissociative enhancement. If you enhance one part, you diminish something else.