Neurotechnology, how it affects moral and legal issues
Introduction
Neurotechnology is any technology that has an influence on how people understand the brain and numerous features of awareness, thought and higher order actions in the brain. It encompasses technologies that advance and repair the brain purpose and allows scientists to visualize the brain. Neurotechnology is any artificial means to interact with the workings of the brain. Neurotechnology is also defined as the gathering of systems and tools that allow a direct connection of technical mechanisms with the nervous system. Another part of Neurotechnology is the moral and ethical debates. There are four major concerns regarding Neurotechnology, are Privacy and Consent, Agency and
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Neuroscience advances raise great hopes, they increase deep ethical, legal, and social questions. There are still holes in the understanding of how the brain functions in health and disease. Advances in neuroscience, technology, and essential tools are required to treat diseases such as depression, schizophrenia, and Alzheimer’s disease and the growing brain-related injuries and illnesses. Research and tools developed under comprehensive and multi-disciplinary research are creating new paths for persuading important brain purposes. But these risks in research on the human brain raise deep moral and legal questions that, if not addressed, could weaken the acceptance of harmless and effective interventions. The broad agreement that the moral and legal issues should inform the course of this research and provide the research with a hidden agenda. Some efforts have been done, but nothing to examine it correctly with evidence. (Hopkins, …show more content…
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Can a mass of networked neurons produce moral human agents? I shall argue that it can; a brain can be morally excellent. A connectionist account of how the brain works can explain how a person might be morally excellent in Aristotle's sense of the term. According to connectionism, the brain is a maze of interconnections trained to recognize and respond to patterns of stimulation. According to Aristotle, a morally excellent human is a practically wise person trained in good habits. What an Aristotelian theory of ethics and a connectionist theory of mind have in common is the assumption that the successful mind/brain has the disposition to behave appropriately in appropriate circumstances. According to Aristotle, the good person knows the right end, desires and chooses to pursue it, and recognizes the right means to it. Thus the good person's brain must be able to form certain moral concepts, develop appropriate behavioral dispositions, and learn practical reasoning skills. I shall argue that this collection of the brain's cognitive capacities is best accounted for by a connectionist theory of the mind/brain. The human condition is both material and moral; we are brain-controlled bodies with ethical values. My essay seeks to understand the relationship between our brains and our values, between how the brain works and how we make moral decisions.
The control center of the human body is none other than the mighty brain. Due to its incredible importance in basic human functioning, both voluntary and involuntary, any injury or trauma to this organ will have a great influence on the body and it's capabilities (Burrus, 2013). Exploring how the brain deals with various injuries and damage proves that the functionality of the brain is fitting to make the brain the power house of the body. But before exploring this with the help of case studies, it is important to first make sense of the the anatomy and functioning of the nervous system as a whole in order to understand how it is affected during injury, the functioning of the body that is lost, the intervention implemented for treatment or rehabilitation and the changes experienced.
Throughout history, treatments for Parkinson's disease have been informed by the technology available at the time. Ablation was widespread until medicines that provided superior effectiveness were discovered. Deep brain stimulation -not a new technology when it came into use as a PD treatment in the 1990s, but one whose potential had not been realized -provided further improvements, allowing for treatment when medications ceased to work. Deep brain stimulation allowed for a very powerful tool in the treatment of Parkinson's disease, but not one that was without risks. As our understanding of the brain becomes more sophisticated, the mechanisms by which deep brain stimulation works are becoming more clear, allowing it to be used more effectively, with fewer side effects, and with less risk of harm to the patient during surgery and after.
Technology and the Brain As a college student, using the internet and technology is a daily task. Everything you need for your classes: schedules, homework, quizzes, and even tests are all online. The debate on technology and the brain suggests that technology may have an effect on the brain, effect multi-tasking, and cause addiction. Brain Activity
Biomedical engineering is a branch of science that connects engineering sciences with biological sciences that started around the 1940s (Citron & Nerem, 2004). Biomedical engineering is the discipline that promotes learning in engineering, biology, chemistry, and medicine. The objective for biomedical engineers is to enhance human health by incorporating engineering and biomedical sciences to solve problems. Some of the accomplishments made from biomedical engineering are prosthetics, robotic and laser surgery, implanted devices, imaging devices, nanotheranostics and artificial intelligence. As we head towards the future, biomedical engineering is anticipated to become an even greater part of the medical industry and bring about innovating
Recent reports in science have found discrete locations in the brain that are used in intricate systems that serve as the human moral compass (1).Changes in the brain have long been known to change the behaviors of a man. In the famous example of Phineas Gage, an accident at his job caused an iron rod to pierce through Gage's skull. Gage was able to stand and speak a...
The insanity defense presents many difficult questions for the legal system. It attracts attention beyond its practical significance (it is seldom used successfully) because it goes to the heart of the concept of legal responsibility. ‘‘Not guilty by reason of insanity’’ generally requires that as a result of mental illness the defendant was unable to distinguish right from wrong at the time of the crime. The many difficult and complex questions presented by the insanity defense have led some in the legal community to hope that neuroscience might help resolve some of these problems, but that hope is not likely to be realized. (Smith 475)
As the scientific field of Neuroscience develops and expands, so too does the discipline of Neuroethics. This new and emerging area of study aims to discuss the ethical applications of advancements in neuroscience. Over the past few decades, technological advancements in neuroscience have risen sharply. Every day, scientist’s understanding of the human mind increases exponentially. New technologies grant researchers the ability to make cognitive enhancements, carry out brain imaging and provide the human brain with a variety of different services. Neuroethics attempts to bridge the capabilities of science, with the social and ethical climate of today’s world. New advancements in what scientists can do, such as Brain Imaging, Cognitive enhancement, pharmacological enhancement of mood, and brain machine interfaces and non-pharmacological enhancement must be carefully examined to determine their proper and ethical usage.
...n they serve, locate the areas of the brain that are affected by neurological disorders, and develop new strategies to treat brain disorders. Along with such understandings, more in depth scans of the brain are beginning to reveal the possibility of a more refined and detailed lie detection source. If such technology is produced, the federal government will apply it to protecting the country, but what will others use it for? Premature commercialization brings forth the possible downfall of this technology; basic research that is needed will be halted and later misuse will corrupt the advancements we are making today. The ethical question of privacy will also need more scrutiny and thought before such methods become widespread, for society must be ready to come to a decision about the value of cognitive privacy before their world is overtaken with such technologies.
The human brain is one of the body’s most complex organs. It enables us to think, move, feel, see, hear, taste, and smell. It controls the functioning of our body, receives sensory information, evaluates informationThe human brain is one of the body’s most complex organs. It enables us to think, move, feel, see, hear, taste, and smell. It controls the functioning of our body, receives sensory information, evaluates information, and stores information.
As the human body goes through different experiences, the brain grows, develops, and changes according to the environmental situations it has been exposed to. Some of these factors include drugs, stress, hormones, diets, and sensory stimuli. [1] Neuroplasticity can be defined as the ability of the nervous system to respond to natural and abnormal stimuli experienced by the human body. The nervous system then reorganizes the brain’s structure and changes some of its function to theoretically repair itself by forming new neurons. [2] Neuroplasticity can occur during and in response to many different situations that occur throughout life. Some examples of these situations are learning, diseases, and going through therapy after an injury.
During this corse I lean multiple ways that the brain changes mentally as a person ages, such as cognitive development. There are many theories about how cognitive development occurs in children. Jean Piaget had a theory of cognitive development that included 3 different stages, the sensorimotor stage, the preoperational stage, and the concrete operational stage. The stages begin with learning though senses and actions, to have magical and egotistic thinking, to being able to think logically but not abstractly. Piaget also believed that people’s brains create schemas, almost like folders for the ideas of the brain, in order to organized they can understand them. When someone takes in new information,
The debate between whether to follow the utilitarian view of rights or the natural view of rights is one of the many puzzles associated with rights, which include; whether we have rights, what these rights are, where they come from, and whether or not they are timeless or context specific. These have an effect on both natural and utilitarian rights in the way they mould the human mind, our values, morals and ethics.
Focusing on what is best for the organization as a whole and not self greed, not focusing on short-term profits but the long-term profit goals for the shareholders, investors, and employees would help keep employees ethical (Ferrell, et al, 2009).When an employee is fearful of losing his or her job, unethical conduct can be the result of trying to keep that job (Ferrell, et al, 2009).When pressures are placed on employees to make money quick, fast, and in a hurry, the results could be unethical behavior (Ferrell, et al,
...s this line of inquiry progresses, as new neural-imaging techniques, new technologies like virtual reality come to bear on this problem; we will likely lose certainty about what is right and wrong rather than gain it.” (Tucker, 2009)