Books and Book Chapters

Follow

• 

  Bioethics and Brains

  James Giordano and John R. Shook

  How neuroethics can be increasingly relevant and informative for inclusive social policy and political discourse about brain science and technologies.
  
  Neuroethics, a field just over two decades old, addresses both ethical issues generated in and by brain sciences and the neuroscientific studies of moral and ethical thought and action. These foci are reciprocally interactive and prompt questions of how science and ethics can and should harmonize. In Bioethics and Brains, John R. Shook and James Giordano ask: How can the brain sciences inform ethics? And how might ethics guide the brain sciences and their real-world applications?
  
  The authors’ structure for a disciplined neuroethics reconciles science and ethics by requiring ethical principles consistent with moral neuroscience and moral psychology. Their cosmopolitan perspective looks beyond Western theories toward a new metaethics for neuroethics and illustrates its approach in chapters that address the issues and approaches to questions and problems generated by the proliferation of neurotechnology in global contexts. Shook and Giordano posit that neuroethics can merge science and ethics toward establishing global consensus on guiding brain research, neurotechnological innovation, and grounding neurorights.

• 

  Chapter 20 - Assessing systemic benefit and risk in the development of BCI neurotechnology

  Prashant Desai, John R. Shook, and James Giordano

  For both neurotechnology as an engineering field and neuroethics as an academic discipline, it must be imperative to explore and address the wide implications of BCI use (and nonuse) at the aggregate level as well as the individual level. Multisystem (e.g., cross-cultural or international) considerations merit both economic and ethical consideration. Future BCI will probably has to be empowered by AI capable of anticipating, channeling, nudging, and effectively encouraging (as well as discouraging) some kinds of thoughts and choices, much like it completes queries and fulfills prompts. Unless brains are tightly geared with AI, human awareness will get left behind to be merely “on the loop” instead of “in the loop.” Hence, BCI neurotechnology could not be used in a “neutral manner” by generic consumers apart from their social surroundings and cultural traditions. Its increasing usage will generate considerable reconfiguration and disruption of extant social, economic, and power balances on the 21st century world stage. We recommend a cosmopolitan approach for neuroethics to address and potentially resolve such issues with innovations such as BCI, suggesting guidelines and regulations for transnational implementation.

• 

  Neuroscience, Neuroculture, and Neuroethics:Impacting Human Futures

  James Giordano, John R. Shook, and Roland Benedikter

  Contemporary brain research is challenging Western societal norms by questioning basic cornerstones such as individuality, freedom, rationality, solidarity, and the concept of the human being in general. It is giving way to profound changes in Western concepts of culture and civilization. This volume provides a broad overview of the cultural changes incurred by neuroscience and neurotechnology, and explores the evolving fields of neuroeconomics, neuroreligion, neuropolitics, and neuroethics. It takes a multi-disciplinary approach in explaining how neuroscience and neurotechnology will affect society, and illustrates how these tools and methods are being used in research and ever-expanding practices in varying fields.