Reviews for Ethical Brain

The average rating for Ethical Brain based on 2 reviews is 4.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-10-19 00:00:00 Jeffrey Inman This is one of the big ones, despite its short length. When is an embryo or a fetus a person? When does a person cease being a person? How much chemical and genetic meddling with the brain is ok? These and a host of other questions are addressed here. Gazzinaga's style is quite accessible and his content is enlightening. QUOTES Xix I would like to support the idea that there could be a universal set of biological responses to moral dilemmas, a sort of ethics, built into our brains. My hope is that we soon may be able to uncover those ethics, identify them, and begin to live more fully by them. I believe we live by them largely unconsciously now, but that a lot of suffering, war, and conflict could be eliminated if we could agree to live by them more consciously. P9 Obviously there is a point of view that life begins at conception. The continuity argument is that a fertilized egg will go on to become a person and therefore deserves the rights of an individual, because it is unquestionably where a particular individual's life begins. If one is not willing to parse the subsequent events of the development, then this becomes one of those arguments you can't argue with. Either you believe it or you don't. While those who argue this point try to suggest that anyone who values the sanctity of human life must see things this way, the fact is that this just isn't so. This view comes, to a large extent, from the Catholic Church, the American religious right, and even many atheists and agnostics. On the other side, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, many Christians, and other atheists and agnostics do not believe it. Certain Jews and Muslims believe that the embryo deserves to be assigned the moral status of a "human" after forty days of development. Many Catholics believe the same, and many have written to me expressing those views based on their own reading of church history. P 11 Why? As Sir Bertrand Russell said, "In an instant of time, nothing exists." In other words, everything is the product of the interaction of atoms and molecules, so by definition, everything is a dynamic process. This raises the potentiality argument, the view that since an embryo or fetus could become an adult, it must always be granted equivalent moral status to a postnatal human being. During a discussion of stem cell research that took place while I was serving on President Bush's bioethics council, I made an analogy comparing embryos created for stem cell research to a Home Depot. You don't walk in to a Home Depot and see thirty houses. You see materials that need architects, carpenters, electricians, and plumbers to create a house. An egg and a sperm are not a human. A fertilized embryo is not a human'it needs a uterus, and at least six months of gestation and development, growth and neuron formation, and cell duplication to become a human. To give an embryo created for biomedical research the same status as one created for in vitro fertilization (IVF), let alone one created naturally, is patently absurd. When a Home Depot burns down, the headline in the paper is not "40 Houses Burn Down." It is "Home Depot Burned Down." P 12 - Intention Current policy on stem cell research is based on the attempt to weigh the value of potential human life (in the case of biomedical cloning, an embryo created for biological research) against the value of the potential of research to save lives. This is a wrongheaded equation. For research on spare IVF embryos, as well as for embryos made for biomedical research, the need to harvest stem cells at fourteen days raises the question of the moral status of the embryo. Both these cases raise another ethical factor to weigh, intention. Two kinds of embryos are used for human biomedical research: spare embryos from IVF procedures, and embryos created by "somatic cell nuclear transfer" (SCNT). In SCNT an egg is removed from a female, the DNA is removed from it, and cell from another individual is placed into the egg and allowed to grow…This process was used to create the sheep, Dolly. In biomedical research using SCNT, a cloned embryo is created in a petri dish for the purpose of harvesting stem cells for studies and, ultimately, if research that has recently been thwarted is successful, for use in the treatment of such diseases as Parkinson's. There is never an intention to create a human being. Does this clump of cells deserve the protections of a human being? Stem cell researchers adhere to a cutoff of fourteen days, before which they do not consider life to have begun. The embryo has not begun to develop a nervous system, the biological structure that sustains and interprets the world in order to generate, maintain and modify the very concept of human dignity. An intention argument can also be made for spare embryos created from IVF. Parents undergoing fertility treatment may create many embryos so as to ensure one viable embryo that takes hold when implanted. It is not the intention of the parents that every embryo created be a child. After natural sexual intercourse, an estimated 60 to 80 percent of all embryos generated through the union of egg and sperm spontaneously abort'many without our knowledge. So if we use IVP to create embryos and then implant only a select few, aren't we doing what nature does? We have simply replaced nature's techniques with modern scientific techniques for selecting the stringest embryos. ...Intention is an interesting ethical concept that we seem to understand intrinsically. We see it everywhere; save for cases of reckless and negligence, intention is a clear marker of guilt in our legal system. Crimes are weighed, guilt is determined, and punishment is meted out based on intention… Is intention, which appears to be a guiding principle of ethics, hard-wired into our brains? Research on the "theory of the mind" suggests that it is. In fact, intention may be one of the defining characteristics of the human species. A crucial part of being human is to have a theory about the intentions of others in relation to oneself. Intention dismissed Knowing this'that our brains are wired to form intentions'should become the context, then, for looking at any intention argument. While I happen to agree with the intention argument vis-à-vis stem cell research, intention arguments are inherently nonsensical. When you think about the neuroscience, it is important to understand that we are wired to form these personal beliefs'these "theories of the mind." When one has an intention about another person, thing, or animal, it is a stat of personal belief. The person or thing or animal sits separate and apart from that belief. Does a clump of cells take on a different character if I do not intend to have it develop, say by reimplanting it into a woman's uterus? I think not. It is the same clump of cells no matter what my personal intentions are for it. The cells are what they are and should be evaluated on their own terms, not mine. This, ultimately, is why we should set aside our personal beliefs and accept that a clump of cells is decidedly not human being. P 44 Three laws of genetic are widely agreed on. First, all behavioral traits are heritable (capable of being passed sown from one generation to the next). Second, the environmental effect of being raised in the same family is smaller than the effect of genes. Finally, neither genes nor family environment accounts for a substantial portion of the variation in complex human behavioral traits. P 47 Family environment plays only a minor role. It is our unshared (with siblings) environment that plays a major role in who we become. P 48 Genes are a scaffolding, but the fine detail is tuned by interaction with the environment. P 120 Why is it so difficult to learn and remember new information and to remember it accurately? One reason is that our brains were not built to remember the kinds of things we must learn in a modern world…The brain is built for organic things such as remembering where real harm can come to you in real physical space…Modern research steers us nearer to the idea that we have good memories for the gist of an experience and poor memory for details. P 122 Accurate memories are an idea, not a reality of the human condition. P 134 Our own conscious or unconscious feelings, stereotypes and biases can affect how we encode information and what information we retrieve from memory Consistency bias refers to our tendency to consider beliefs and feelings that we currently hold as being similar to or consistent with beliefs we had in the past…Sometimes, however, it is more convenient and satisfying to believe that we have changed more than we actually have…Egocentricity bias is a self-enhancing bias that causes us to believe our own intuitions and memories more than those of others, to think of ourselves as more honest, truthful, successful, attractive, and so forth, than we may actually be. P 135 Hindsight bias is merely our tendency to adapt our memory about an event or situation to fit what we know to have been the outcome of that event or situation. …Stereotype bias occurs when our brain attempts to fit incoming information into specific categories for storage. These categories are often associated with particular feelings and beliefs, and from that association comes the basis of stereotype. P 141 Memory is not so much a mechanism for remembering the past as a means to prepare us for the future. Some of my best memories are false ones. P 152 ..religions, while possibly originating from a common moral core that we all possess, are interpretations built on surrounding cultural realities.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-11-01 00:00:00 Daniel Alderman The cover says to me the doors to the mind. The cover has as its main image three doors side-by-side. This is a book about neuroethics, a subfield of bioethics. It looks at how the brain figures into ethical decisions in four ways. The first part of the book looks at given what we know of the brain, what ethical decisions should we make in regards to the beginning and ending of life, such as when should we give moral status to a fetus and how does the aging brain figure into how we treat people with various forms of dementia. The second part looks at whether we should seek to improve the brain through genes, training, or drugs. In the third part we are given a picture of how the brain, free will, and the law should relate. Finally, in part four it explores the brain in relation to beliefs and how ethics is produced. Here are my comments on parts of the text. Kindle locations are shown in brackets []. [303] "We can show in clever studies that the brain of a six-week-old baby is conscious of complex concepts." This indicates that language may not be needed to think, which gives weight to the idea that we do not think in language that I currently favor. It would also seem to show that maybe animals are capable of some concept formation; although, I admit this is more speculative. [310] "The moment life began for any individual is a simple issue'conception. But this is looking at the issue in hindsight, and unfair, in that we are looking at a person and assessing when his or her life began." I consider my life began at my birth'end of story, or is that beginning. [515] "The specter of designer babies is unsettling on one level, but old hat on another. Evolutionary biologists and psychologists have been studying mate selection for years. People seek the smartest, most beautiful mate possible. We like blonds, or we don't; we like tall and lanky or heavyset, or smart, or cheerful, or dark and mysterious, or anything else. By realizing what our preferences are, and sorting through everyone we meet with these criteria before deciding with whom we will conceive a child with, we already engage in serious genetic screening." I do not think everyone is that picky. And, plenty of children are conceived in a fit of passion. Most people marry and thus have children because they fall in love in various situations. They do not go through a checklist of criteria. Some selection may take place in the sense of what we are attracted to, but it is most often a crap shoot. If these studies are based on animal mating studies where close observation is going on, how much validity does this give to mate selection in humans. Also, if psychologist are relying on questionnaires, how accurate are these self reports, and do they really transfer to actual mate selection in reality. While Gazzaniga often gives references in his endnotes, there are none for these studies. Maybe, there are none [732] Wrapping up his chapter on genetic engineering of the brain, he writes: "I am confident that we will always understand what is ultimately good for the species and what is not." Is this not just hubris or delusion? People are killing each other all over the planet. We cannot even take care of the poor and unfortunate. And, the latest news has me question if we are so wise; how come we cannot even come up with sane gun control laws in the United States? [@732] This whole chapter leads me to ask, what about those that cannot afford these genetic brain enhancements, will they not be allowed to have children? I mean is he aware that a significant portion of the people on this planet live in poverty, including one sixth of the children in the United States. [1097] Speaking of cognitive enhancement drugs he includes the comment, "just as most people don't alter their mood with Prozac . . ." This sounds condescending toward people that must take anti-depressant to live a more mentally healthy life, unless he is referring to those that would take it to boost an already good mood, which I do not even know if this is possible. [1120] "We now understand that changes in our brain are both necessary and sufficient for changes in our mind." All I can say is absolutely. There is no separate mind stuff. Thus, the mind is the brain. This last statement my not be the view of Gazzaniga. [1133] "When we become consciously aware of making a decision, the brain has already made it happen." Again, yes. This is similar to my notion that are thoughts come first, then the language to describe them is produce so that we are aware of some of our thoughts. But, these studies are done in a laboratory under highly restricted conditions. This does not necessarily mean that all are decision might be made before we are aware of them. But, this cannot be ruled out. [1139] After stating that brains are deterministic, he writes: "Personal responsibility is a public concept. It exists in groups, not in an individual. If you were the only person on earth, there would be no concept of personal responsibility. Responsibility is a concept you have about other people's actions and they about yours. Brains are determined; people (more than one human being) follow rules when they live together, and out of that interaction arises the concept of freedom of action." I do not buy this explanation. First, the major reason that there would be no responsibility is that there would be no one to be responsible to, so in a way it is so, but only because it is a social concept. But, even if it is so, the social sphere is just as deterministic as the individual one. If it were not, there would be social chaos (not the theoretical type, which is still deterministic and may actually apply), just like in what is thought of as the physical world (everything is physical). [1146] "Those aspects [the social] of our personhood are'oddly'not in our brains. They exist only in the relationships that exist when our automatic brains interact with other automatic brains." (his italics) This is different than other explanations of social responsibility that I have come across. As I said above, it is still deterministic. [Deterministic + Deterministic ≠ Nondeterministic] [1173] In a famous experimental study of the awareness of decision he relates: "The time between the onset of the readiness potential and the moment of conscious decision-making was about 300 milliseconds. If the readiness potential of the brain begins before we are aware of making the decision to move our hand, it would appear that our brains know our decisions before we become consciousness of them." And, that is if the potential represents the making of the decision. Regardless, decisions are deterministic, and it is likely that decision and consciousness thereof, are separate brain events. [1266] In keeping with the above: "Our freedom is found in the interaction of the social world." I do not see how this is necessarily so. As I said previously, the social world is determined too. [1273] "No pixel in a brain scan will ever be able to show culpability or nonculpability." What about during the actual commission of the crime? Also, what about scanning memories, which, who knows, may be something that we will be able to do in the future? Not that I especially think it is probable in the least, but you cannot rule it out. [1553] ". . . it is hard to keep a long, complex logic and a derived set of principles in mind when trying to formulate a new thought." Maybe it is the difficulty of translation of thought into language. [1726] Discussing split-brain patient experiments, he writes: "Therefore his left brain (which processes language and deals with constructing verbal information, but never saw the picture of the snowy house) offered an explanation: he must have chosen the shovel because it could be used to clean out the chicken coop [the picture shown to the right part of the brain]." This I think adds support to my thinking that we do not actually think in language. At least it is in the right brain of these split-brain individuals in these experiments. [1964] "Of course, this hint at a basis for beliefs does not mean that those who possess religious beliefs are undergoing seizure activity." Maybe, brain freeze. [1978] "Others whose life's stories contain evidence of epileptic seizures include Moses . . ." First, Moses almost certainly did not exist. Second, you would need actual physical evidence rather than just literary evidence to make this claim. [2098] "Moral emotions'those that motivate behavior'are driven mostly by the brain stem and limbic axis . . ." Might not this be where free will arises. I see this as evidence that free will is an emotion. I was somewhat disappointed with the book. From the title I thought it was going to talk about how the brain produced ethics. It does in part four, but the first three were on how what we may know about the brain affects ethical decisions and what might be ethical avenues of brain enhancements (e.g. genetics and drugs) These parts were good, but I felt overall the book gave no deep understanding of how the brain makes ethical decisions or guides moral behavior. This book would be good for anyone concerned with neuroethics, which tries to determine what are good moral responses to issues that involve the brain. As I said above, if you want any more but a few clues to how the brain produces ethics, and are not satisfied with the majority of what the book does cover, you may want to think twice about reading it. [Note - I am not sure of a four star rating.