Focus, focus, focus. I keep repeating that word over and over again, just like a mantra, trying to refrain myself from the temptations of adding so many other topics to our discussion. Hope told us she was a hedgehog; I am definitively a fox. For the good and the worst. I feel provoked and delighted by all the insights and opinions presented so far. I’ll try to make some comments (not necessarily answers) right to the point and keep focused.

                   #1: Ethical theory: I agree with Hope when she said she didn’t know what theoretical approach neuroethics was using. She’s definitively in favor of Aristotelian ethics, but what about other neuroethicists?

                   Well, this is a very pertinent question and opens, in fact, an entire new branch (I’m a bit afraid of using the word field, after Ken’s assignment.

                  As far as I know, neuroethics has developed in a bifold way: firstly, as an attempt to cope with ethical questions involving neuroscientific research and neurological treatments; secondly, analysis of ethical theory (see, for example, articles by Joshua Greene, Jorge Moll or John Mikhail). The second approach adopts a descriptive position: it tries to present how moral decisions are processed in our brains and, especially in Greene’s work, tries to empirically test some ethical positions, like utilitarian and Kantian views, using recent imaging techniques. Let’s call that second approach neuroethics-broad sense.

                    One can argue that the first approach is a prescriptive one, though. It is prescriptive, indeed, but in a soft sense. Neuroethics-narrow sense – let’s paraphrase Chomsky’s linguistic terminology (just the terms, not the sense) – does worry about ethical issues but, in spite of focusing on which theoretical background better explains its solutions, it concentrates on the solutions themselves, showing a more pragmatic attitude.

                    Lawyers and ethical philosophers are prone to concentrate on prescriptive analysis of behavior because both Law and Morality prescribe conducts.

                   So, what scenario do we have? On one hand, an empirically based collection of studies describing moral behavior and looking for evidences capable of proving (or denying) ethical theories assumptions and, on the other hand, an eager search for establishing moral boundaries to neurosciences. This search not necessarily lies on a conscious choice of an ethical theory and ethical parameters, but rather on immediate needs to control behavior and protect human rights. Clearly, neuroethics-narrow sense lacks a deeper ethical theoretical background. However, by the time neuroethics finally affiliates with an ethical school, neuroethics –narrow sense approach will be tested for empirical evidences.

Hello everyone!

                                I’m writing  just to apologize for my delay in posting my comments. I’ve been traveling for the last four or five days, and it’s been a bit crazy . I’m in Oslo, while my luggage (still in Brazil) is trying to come to my hotel before I take another plane to Helsinki.  A real mess.

                               I’m sorry!

                               I’ll post my comments in a few minutes.

Ana Rosa Amorim.

I was expecting our web chat to happen before I posted, however as i have heard no more about it and it is nearly week 3, i am assuming that the logistics are somewhat impossible ( i noticed at least a 7 hour TZ spread with our participants!)  – I will do a single blog post covering the week 2 and 3 topics on thursday. ( I also have some more comments on week 1 but who knows when i will get around to those!!)

In thinking about how to approach this week’s topic on the Universal Declaration on Bioethics, I was reminded of several items I had read previously, one from Adam Smith and the other from Dostoevsky, each of whom had presented an extreme and idealized view of the nature of human relationship. It occurred to me that Smith’s and Dostoevsky’s views on this subject, being nearly opposite from one another, might be used to frame a conceptual space into which we might posit the Universal Declaration of Bioethics, and by so doing better illustrate the aspirational goals and practical difficulties inherent in any attempt to implement such an ambitious document.

Smith’s view on the nature of human relationship, a very sober one, I take from a hypothetical vignette he presented in his book “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759). in which he wrote

“Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connexion with that part of the world, would be affected upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all, express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquillity, as if no such accident had happened.”.

Smith used this hypothetical example to underscore the all too common and natural tendency to assign increasingly diminished importance to the problems of people who are socially removed from ourselves.

In stark contrast to the pragmatic view of human nature presented in Smith’s vignette, (which we should also note in passing is not at all representative of Smith’s moral philosophy overall), Dostoyevsky at several points in “The Brothers Karamozov” presents an idealized conception of human relationship in its fullness, when each individual is

“responsible to all men for all and everything, for all human sins, national and individual. . . that every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men and everything on earth, not merely through the general sinfulness of creation, but each one personally for all mankind and every individual man”

Being near conceptual opposites, and for the sake of discussion, we might conceptualize the Smith and Dostoevsky presentation of human relationship as representing opposite ends of a continuum on views of human relationship. At one end of this continuum we would have Smith’s hard-boiled, every-man-is-an-island, pragmatic view of human nature. At the opposite end of this continuum we could place Dostoevsky’s idealistic view of human relationship, in it’s ideal state.

Pushing this conceptual model further, we might also want to take our Smith-Dostoevsky continuum of human relationship and think of this line as being the X-axis of a cartesian space. To form the two-dimensional cartesian space, we could add a Y-axis corresponding to cost in some way.

With this 2-dimensional space thus defined, we might think of plotting a cost-curve for the implemention of a document like the Universal Declaration on Bioethics across varying settings, varying with respect to which the social capital in the setting most closely represented the Smith or Dostoevsky characterization of the nature of human relationship. In settings closer to Smith’s view, the cost would be higher and conversely in settings more typified by Dostoevsky’s ideal view, where everyone already felt responsible for everyone else, the cost or difficulty of implementing something like the Universal Declaration on Bioethics would be much lower.

These costs would have to vary due to the many obstacles which would have to be overcome for a meaningful implementation of the Declaration, where by “meaningful implementation” we mean one in which the Declaration really provided effective transnational human rights protections.

These costs would have to vary because, to meaningfully implement this document, a number of problems would need to be solved, each of which would be more or less difficult to solve depending on the local context and the extent to which the process participants were receptive to the document’s intent.

Perhaps the most difficult implementational issue is the question of enforcement. Implying as it does supranational standards of conduct, a meaningful implementation of the Declaration, (as opposed to a nominal implementation) would imply some sort of concession of sovereignty, it would seem, in agreeing to be subject to the document.

Another major cost or difficulty of implementing the Declaration are the problems of coming up with mutually agreed upon and well defined description of the ethical standards to be codified in the Declaration. I found in Google Scholar today a description of how the current declaration was developed, (1) and to put it mildly the process left much to be desired.

And also of course implicit in a meaningful implementation of something like the Universal Declaration on Bioethics is the overcoming of myriad political, organizational and administrative barriers – the types of problems for example which have historically plagued UNESCO in the past.

And so, to close, I will declare my personal bias on the Smith-Dostoevsky continuum, and say that unfortunately I think Smith’s vignette presents the more realistic depiction of the way the world really is, however enchanting Dostoevsky’s elysian vision might seem.

Consequently I think a meaningful, as opposed to a nominal, implementation of the Universal Declaration on Bioethics will not be easy and will not happen anytime soon.

(1) Journal of Medicine and Philosophy Advance Access published online on April 23, 2009
Journal of Medicine and Philosophy, doi:10.1093/jmp/jhp024