Neuroethics | Ethics & Society

About Neuroethics

Neuroethics is an interdisciplinary field that addresses ethical, legal, social, and cultural, but also philosophical and scientific questions related to neuroscience and related technologies. It has two main approaches: “ethics of neuroscience” and “neuroscience of ethics”. Recently, a new approach, fundamental neuroethics, has emerged, which focuses on foundational analyses through a multidisciplinary research domain and interdisciplinary methodology.
Use this tool on Neuroethics to explore ethical issues in brain research.

Meet Doctor Thomas

Doctor Thomas is an expert within Disorders of Consciousness (DoCs). With the progressing knowledge on consciousness, Thomas and his team faces a dilemma on how to talk to families of patients about the indicators of consciousness.

Watch the video and consider how you would approach a similar future situation…

The Neuroethics Quiz

As part of your neuroscientific research project, you need to conduct a (neuro)ethical self-assessment. This has been agreed with your funder to increase the social acceptability of your activity. Now how do you approach this task?

When planning a (neuro)ethical self-assessment, what kind of knowledge do you think is necessary?

The knowledge of relevant regulation that sets the standards of conduct for neuroscientists.

A basic knowledge of theoretical and practical issues and related methodologies informing actual neuroethical debate.

An advanced knowledge of the ethical debates surrounding neuroscientific research.

When performing a (neuro)ethical self-assessment, which aspect of your activity you pay more attention to?

The most important thing is to evaluate whether my research plan is compliant with relevant regulation.

For an effective (neuro)ethical self-assessment, it is important to consider all the ethical dimensions of the research plan, including its original motivations, its methodology, its aims, and the way it potentially translates into societal benefit.

It is crucial to focus on the potential good for society emerging from the research. This may fully justify it.

After having performed your (neuro)ethical self-assessment, do you think it is necessary to develop a dialogue with public society about the potential (neuro)ethical issues arising from your work?

It is not really necessary to engage with the public: all the necessary information for making my research ethically sound in included in relevant institutional documents.

I would rather try to dialogue with my peers in order to get inputs on how to avoid making mistakes that can undermine the credibility of my research.

Engaging with public society is vital: it can provide a more updated view on different topics than institutional documents. In fact, the rate of scientific progress is so high that also ethical reflection should evolve rapidly, and the best way to proceed is taking care of public opinions.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Further capacity development and the EBRAINS community space

Here you can find links to relevant teaching modules – our Capacity Development Modules – on Neuroethics and to the EBRAINS Community Space, where you can network with other brain researchers.

OR go directly to Publications on the top of this page to find academic articles on Ethics & Society

Acknowledgements:

Thank you to Michele Farisco for your contributions to the text, video-script and quiz on Neuroethics.