Psychiatry in the Era of Neuroethics
June 10, 2010
For decades, neuroscientists have been cognizant of the social implications of their work, but only since 2002 has the field of “neuroethics†emerged as a formal discipline that attempts to organize and address the ethical issues in neuroscience research and technology.3 The coining of the term “neuroethics†is credited to William Safire,4 a former columnist for The New York Times, who described it as “the field of philosophy that discusses the rights and wrongs of the treatment of, or enhancement of, the human brain.†A new vernacular has since transpired, with the prefix “neuro†(denoting neuroscience-based or -informed) commonly appended to a suffix such as “ethics,†“ law,†“imaging,†or “enhancement.†Michael Gazzaniga,5 sitting with the 2004 President’s Council on Bioethics, provided a broader definition of neuroethics as the “examination of how we want to deal with the social issues of disease, normality, mortality, lifestyle, and the philosophy of living informed by our understanding of underlying brain mechanisms.†(Psychiatric Times)
