-
120Responsibility, alcoholism, and liver transplantationJournal of Medicine and Philosophy 23 (1). 1998.Many believe that it is morally wrong to give lower priority for a liver transplant to alcoholics with end-stage liver disease than to patients whose disease is not alcohol-related. Presumably, alcoholism is a disease that results from factors beyond one's control and therefore one cannot be causally or morally responsible for alcoholism or the liver failure that results from it. Moreover, giving lower priority to alcoholics unfairly singles them out for the moral vice of heavy drinking. I argue…Read more
-
194Psychopharmacological enhancementNeuroethics 1 (1): 45-54. 2008.Many drugs have therapeutic off-label uses for which they were not originally designed. Some drugs designed to treat neuropsychiatric and other disorders may enhance certain normal cognitive and affective functions. Because the long-term effects of cognitive and affective enhancement are not known and may be harmful, a precautionary principle limiting its use seems warranted. As an expression of autonomy, though, competent individuals should be permitted to take cognition- and mood-enhancing age…Read more
-
32On the revised principle of alternate possibilitiesSouthern Journal of Philosophy 31 (1): 49-60. 1993.
-
40Omnipotence and the transfer of powerInternational Journal for Philosophy of Religion 36 (2). 1994.
-
18On the Revised Principle of Alternate PossibilitiesSouthern Journal of Philosophy 32 (1): 49-60. 1994.
-
172Our brains are not usBioethics 23 (6): 321-329. 2009.Many neuroscientists have claimed that our minds are just a function of and thus reducible to our brains. I challenge neuroreductionism by arguing that the mind emerges from and is shaped by interaction among the brain, body, and environment. The mind is not located in the brain but is distributed among these three entities. I then explore the implications of the distributed mind for neuroethics.
-
45Psychopathy and responsibilityJournal of Applied Philosophy 14 (3). 1997.Some philosophers have argued that the psychopath serves as the ultimate test of the limits of moral responsibility. They hold that the psychopath lacks a deep knowledge of right and wrong, and that Kant’s ethics arguably offers the most plausible account of this moral knowledge. On this view, the psychopath’s lack of moral understanding is due to a cognitive failure involving practical reason. I argue that the deep knowledge of right and wrong consists of emotional and volitional components in …Read more
-
3Neuroscience, Free Will and ResponsibilityJournal of Ethics in Mental Health 4 1-6. 2009.Some cognitive neuroscientists and psychologists claim that our conscious mental states and actions can be explained entirely in terms of unconscious mechanical processes in the brain. This suggests that our belief in free will is an illusion and that we cannot be responsible for our actions. I argue that neuroscience as such does not threaten free and responsible agency. The real threat to free will is not normal brain function but brain dysfunction that impairs or undermines our capacity for a…Read more
-
118Obsessions, Compulsions, and Free WillPhilosophy, Psychiatry, and Psychology 19 (4): 333-337. 2012.Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and other psychiatric disorders can interfere with a person’s capacity to control the nature of his mental states and how they issue in his decisions and actions. Insofar as this sort of control is identified with free will, and psychiatric disorders can impair this control, these disorders can impair free will. The will can be compromised by dysregulated neural networks that disable the mental mechanisms necessary to regulate thought, motivation, and action. …Read more
-
111Neurostimulation and the minimally conscious stateBioethics 22 (6). 2008.Neurostimulation to restore cognitive and physical functions is an innovative and promising technique for treating patients with severe brain injury that has resulted in a minimally conscious state (MCS). The technique may involve electrical stimulation of the central thalamus, which has extensive projections to the cerebral cortex. Yet it is unclear whether an improvement in neurological functions would result in a net benefit for these patients. Quality-of-life measurements would be necessary …Read more
-
19NeurodiversityJournal of Ethics in Mental Health 2 (2): 1. 2007.The neurological and psychological traits that regulate our thought and behavior fall along a spectrum that extends from the normal to the pathological, from traits that enable us to perform mental and physical functions to traits that interfere with these functions. Yet many people have a constellation of both normal and pathological mental traits. Some even have traits associated with exceptional intellectual or artistic ability despite being diagnosed as having a neurological or psychiatric d…Read more
-
11Motivation, risk, and benefit in living organ donation: a reply to Aaron SpitalCambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics 14 (2): 191-194. 2005.
-
142NeuroethicsBioethics 20 (1). 2005.Neuroimaging, psychosurgery, deep-brain stimulation, and psychopharmacology hold considerable promise for more accurate prediction and diagnosis and more effective treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. Some forms of psychopharmacology may even be able to enhance normal cognitive and affective capacities. But the brain remains the most complex and least understood of all the organs in the human body. Mapping the neural correlates of the mind through brain scans, and altering these …Read more
-
362Moral responsibility and the psychopathNeuroethics 1 (3): 158-166. 2008.Psychopathy involves impaired capacity for prudential and moral reasoning due to impaired capacity for empathy, remorse, and sensitivity to fear-inducing stimuli. Brain abnormalities and genetic polymorphisms associated with these traits appear to justify the claim that psychopaths cannot be morally responsible for their behavior. Yet psychopaths are capable of instrumental reasoning in achieving their goals, which suggests that they have some capacity to respond to moral reasons against perform…Read more
-
22James Stacey Taylor: Death, Posthumous Harm, and Bioethics. New York: Routledge, 2012 (review)Bioethics 28 (3): 155-156. 2014.
-
13Free Will and the Brain: Neuroscientific, Philosophical, and Legal Perspectives (edited book)Cambridge University Press. 2015.Neuroscientific evidence has educated us in the ways in which the brain mediates our thought and behavior and, therefore, forced us to critically examine how we conceive of free will. This volume, featuring contributions from an international and interdisciplinary group of distinguished researchers and scholars, explores how our increasing knowledge of the brain can elucidate the concept of the will and whether or to what extent it is free. It also examines how brain science can inform our norma…Read more
-
86Intervening in the psychopath’s brainTheoretical Medicine and Bioethics 35 (1): 43-57. 2014.Psychopathy is a disorder involving personality and behavioral features associated with a high rate of violent aggression and recidivism. This paper explores potential psychopharmacological therapies to modulate dysfunctional neural pathways in psychopaths and reduce the incidence of their harmful behavior, as well as the ethical and legal implications of offering these therapies as an alternative to incarceration. It also considers whether forced psychopharmacological intervention in adults and…Read more
-
183Genes and Future People: Philosophical Issues in Human GeneticsWestview Press. 2001.Advances in genetic technology in general and medical genetics in particular will enable us to intervene in the process of human biological development which extends from zygotes and embryos to people. This will allow us to control to a great extent the identities and the length and quality of the lives of people who already exist, as well as those we bring into existence in the near and distant future. Genes and Future People explores two general philosophical questions, one metaphysical, the o…Read more
-
78Indentity, prudential concern, and extended livesBioethics 16 (3). 2002.Recent advances in human genetics suggest that it may become possible to genetically manipulate telomerase and embryonic stem cells to alter the mechanisms of aging and extend the human life span. But a life span significantly longer than the present norm would be undesirable because it would severely weaken the connections between past‐ and future‐oriented mental states and in turn the psychological grounds for personal identity and prudential concern for our future selves. In addition, the col…Read more
-
51Genes, embryos, and future peopleBioethics 12 (3). 1998.Testing embryonic cells for genetic abnormalities gives us the capacity to predict whether and to what extent people will exist with disease and disability. Moreover, the freezing of embryos for long periods of time enables us to alter the length of a normal human lifespan. After highlighting the shortcomings of somatic‐cell gene therapy and germ‐line genetic alteration, I argue that the testing and selective termination of genetically defective embryos is the only medically and morally defensib…Read more
-
58Free riding and organ donationJournal of Medical Ethics 35 (10): 590-591. 2009.With the gap between the number of transplantable organs and the number of people needing transplants widening, many have argued for moving from an opt-in to an opt-out system of deceased organ donation. In the first system, individuals must register their willingness to become donors after they die. In the second system, it is assumed that individuals wish to become donors unless they have registered an objection to donation. Opting out has also been described as presumed consent. Spain has had…Read more
-
15Intraoperative awareness: consciousness, memory and lawJournal of Medical Ethics 40 (10): 663-664. 2014.
Areas of Specialization
Value Theory |
Areas of Interest
Value Theory |