Research: Neuroethics
The importance of neuroethics has grown substantially through recent neuroscientific advances and the challenges they encounter. Neuroethics deals with our consciousness and sense of self, and the values that this self develops: it is an interface between the empirical brain sciences, philosophy of mind, moral philosophy, ethics and the social sciences. It is also the study of the questions that arise when scientific findings about the brain are carried into philosophical analyses, medical practice, legal interpretations, health and social policy.
Scientific developments may lead to profound changes in fundamental concepts such as human identity, self, integrity, responsibility and freedom, as well as in neuroscience’s views on the human mind moving away from conceiving the brain as a passive, artificial input-output network towards a view of the brain as awoken and projective matter.
Kathinka Evers of CRB has extensive collaborations on Neuroethics with Collège de France in Paris, where she is a returning guest lecturer, and the Pasteur Institute in Paris. There are also new collaborations with the Centro de Investigaciones Filosóficas (CIF), and the Institute of Cognitive Neurology (INECO) in Buenos Aires In 2010, CRB launched a web-based course in Neuroethics, with lectures by several well known researchers in the neurosciences.
In 2006 and 2007, Kathinka Evers was invited as visiting professor to Collège de France and held a series of seminars on neuroethics. A book based on these seminars was published in French in 2009 (Neuroéthique. Quand la matière s'éveille) and in Spanish in 2010 (Neuroética. Cuando la materia se despierta).
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Imagining the Work of the Brain - Neuroethics
VII Annual Swedish Symposium on Biomedicine, Ethics and Society
Sandhamn Hotell & Konferens, 13-14 June 2005
Publications
Evers K, Neuroética. Cuando la materia se despierta, Katz editores, 2010
Evers K, Uma Nova Visão do Cérebro: o Aparecimento da Neuroética, in Curado & Oliveira (eds.) 2010, Pessoas Transparentes: Questões Actuais de Bioética, EdicõesAlmedina, Coimbra, Portugal, 2010:77–92.
Evers K, Neuroéthique. Quand la matière s'éveille. Éditions Odile Jacob, Paris, 2009.
Evers K, Personalized medicine in psychiatry: ethical challenges and opportunities, Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience: Personalized Medicine: Prediction, Prevention, Participation, 2009;11(4):427-433.
Evers K, Philosophical challenges for neuroethics. European Neuropsychopharmacology, Journal of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology, 2008;18(4).
Evers K, Toward a philosophy for neuroethics. An informed materialist view of the brain might help to develop theoretical frameworks for applied neuroethics, EMBO reports 2007;8:S1, S48– S51.
Evers K, Kilander L, Lindau M, Insight in Frontotemporal Dementia. Conceptual Analysis and Empirical Evaluation of the Consensus Criterion “Loss of Insight” in Frontotemporal Dementia. Brain & Cognition, 2007;63:13-23.
Evers K, Perspectives on Memory Manipulation – Using Beta-blockers to Cure Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, special issue on neuroethics, Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 2007;16:138-146.
Illes J, Blakemore C, Hansson MG, Hensch T, Leshner A, Maestre G, Magistretti P, Quirion R, Strata P, International perspectives on engaging the public in neuroethics, Nature Reviews Neuroscience 2005;6:977-982.
Evers K, Neuroethics: A Philosophical Challenge, The American Journal of Bioethics, 2005;.5(2):31-2.
More information
- Kathinka Evers, Associate Professor, Senior Researcher
