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Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics

The aim of this article is to argue, by example, for neuroethics as a new way of doing ethics. Rather than simply giving us a new subject matter—the ethical issues arising from neuroscience—to attend to, neuroethics offers us the opportunity to refine the tools we use. Ethicists often need to appeal...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor principal: Levy, Neil
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Taylor & Francis 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3272467/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22318976
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2011.557683
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author Levy, Neil
author_facet Levy, Neil
author_sort Levy, Neil
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description The aim of this article is to argue, by example, for neuroethics as a new way of doing ethics. Rather than simply giving us a new subject matter—the ethical issues arising from neuroscience—to attend to, neuroethics offers us the opportunity to refine the tools we use. Ethicists often need to appeal to the intuitions provoked by consideration of cases to evaluate the permissibility of types of actions; data from the sciences of the mind give us reason to believe that some of these intuitions are less reliable than others. I focus on the doctrine of double effect to illustrate my case, arguing that experimental results suggest that appeal to it might be question-begging. The doctrine of double effect is supposed to show that there is a moral difference between effects that are brought about intentionally and those that are merely foreseen; I argue that the data suggest that we regard some effects as merely foreseen only because we regard bringing them about as permissible. Appeal to the doctrine of double effect therefore cannot establish that there are such moral differences.
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spelling pubmed-32724672012-02-05 Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics Levy, Neil AJOB Neurosci Target Article The aim of this article is to argue, by example, for neuroethics as a new way of doing ethics. Rather than simply giving us a new subject matter—the ethical issues arising from neuroscience—to attend to, neuroethics offers us the opportunity to refine the tools we use. Ethicists often need to appeal to the intuitions provoked by consideration of cases to evaluate the permissibility of types of actions; data from the sciences of the mind give us reason to believe that some of these intuitions are less reliable than others. I focus on the doctrine of double effect to illustrate my case, arguing that experimental results suggest that appeal to it might be question-begging. The doctrine of double effect is supposed to show that there is a moral difference between effects that are brought about intentionally and those that are merely foreseen; I argue that the data suggest that we regard some effects as merely foreseen only because we regard bringing them about as permissible. Appeal to the doctrine of double effect therefore cannot establish that there are such moral differences. Taylor & Francis 2011-03-31 2011 /pmc/articles/PMC3272467/ /pubmed/22318976 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2011.557683 Text en Copyright © Taylor & Francis Group, LLC http://www.informaworld.com/mpp/uploads/iopenaccess_tcs.pdf This is an open access article distributed under the Supplemental Terms and Conditions for iOpenAccess articles published in Taylor & Francis journals (http://www.informaworld.com/mpp/uploads/iopenaccess_tcs.pdf) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Target Article
Levy, Neil
Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics
title Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics
title_full Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics
title_fullStr Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics
title_full_unstemmed Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics
title_short Neuroethics: A New Way of Doing Ethics
title_sort neuroethics: a new way of doing ethics
topic Target Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3272467/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22318976
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/21507740.2011.557683
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