Joshua May

A familiar kind of intellectual controversy sees hoaxers submit materials that they consider of low quality to editors, hoping to expose what they view as deficient editorial standards. I offer a defence of this practice. Whereas a common criticism is that their use of deception makes such hoaxes unethical, I argue that authors do not have an obligation to only submit material that they consider truthful or good. Hoaxes can also perform important functions, such as drawing attention to the current state of an academic or artistic discipline. While particular hoaxes can be unethical, when this occurs, it will be due to contingent features of the hoax in question, not because of the core deception that hoaxes as such involve. Not only can properly executed hoaxes uphold their own form of truth-telling, they can exhibit aesthetic values that we associate with authentic works of art, such as originality and skilful performance. However, this latter outcome can occur in ways that the hoaxers did not intend. I illustrate my argument by reference to the Ern Malley and Sokal hoaxes. Although I appeal in places to hoaxes’ potentially positive consequences, my framework is broadly ecumenical rather than consequentialist, in so far as most non-consequential views also give some weight to consequences.

Joshua May’s Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science gives a clear, engaging, and philosophically rich introduction to the subject. It is a sustained and powerful defense of a bold position within the field of neuroethics, and a demonstration of what makes that field philosophically important and genuinely exciting. Despite the book's overall excellence, I have some concerns about May's call for more nuance in thinking about the connections between mental disorders and responsibility. More nuance in this regard is unquestionably welcome given the status quo, and May's thesis of cognitive continuity is both well-supported and morally urgent; however, I worry that May's "nuanced view" overshoots the mark and incurs some significant practical and conceptual costs, which we can avoid by accepting a little less nuance than May recommends.

Joshua May’s Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science is a landmark achievement in the field. I discuss May’s chapter on the topic of moral enhancement. May examines whether it is morally permissible to go beyond treatment and enhance our moral capacities and character via direct brain interventions. May argues for a permissive stance in which the safe experimentation by individuals of some currently available forms of direct brain interventions are permissible. I contend that May’s discussion overlooks some central distinctions and arguments in the literature on moral enhancement. Specifically, I argue that the discussion would benefit from: a closer look at the Bioethics literature on the treatment/enhancement distinction, the relevant sense of ‘moral’ in this debate, arguments in favor of a moral duty to develop and widely deploy neurotechnologies that could be used for moral enhancement, and examining how radical enhancements, transhumanism and moral status issues are central to the topic.

“We’re in the age of brain science,” writes Joshua May, which comes along with new “ethical concerns and implications” (2023, xv). This Symposium discusses his new book, Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science (Oxford University Press, 2023), which expands on earlier calls for “nuance” in this interdisciplinary field (see, e.g., King & May 2018). The book has an angle: the brain matters in questions of agency and responsibility, but cannot provide the final word. It is written with an eye to the classroom, with primers on philosophy and neuroscience in the introduction and case studies in each chapter. The Symposium should be useful for those who are interested in the book for both research and teaching purposes, covering content from all of the chapters. May’s Précis (2025a) summarizes the book through its four main parts together with an overview of its outlook. Evans (2025) critically assesses May’s claims on deep brain stimulation in Chapter 3, finding them to apply less well to psychiatric disorders (such as anorexia nervosa). Fagan (2025) finds that May’s reasoning on mental disorders and moral responsibility in Chapter 4 may have too much nuance, and suggests some utility in generalizing. Both of these chapters are also discussed by Pugh (2025), who raises new issues of consent and blame. Moseley (2025) questions whether May has provided sufficient framework in Chapter 7 to help us assess brain interventions for moral enhancement. Roskies (2025) critically assesses all of the chapters with an eye to the difficulties of truly interdisciplinary work. In his response, May (2025b) pushes back on some of these criticisms while accepting others, providing more detail on the issues raised.

In this commentary on Joshua May's Neuroethics: Agency in the Age of Brain Science, I consider some of the implications of May's analysis for clinical neuroethics. In particular, in view of May's appeal to the power of valid consent to deal with some of the issues raised by neuro-interventions, I begin by highlighting that clinical neuroethicists often have to navigate a number of complexities in seeking to facilitate the valid consent of individuals who are potentially subject to various forms of vulnerability. I go on to consider whether May's claim that neuro-interventions can elicit transformative experiences raises any problems for his appeal to consent in this context. In the latter half of the commentary, I consider May's analysis of mental disorder and raise some potential areas of contrast between the concepts of responsibility in criminal justice and autonomy in the medical context. I conclude by suggesting that 'nuanced neuroethics' should not only be vigilant about the sources of empirical evidence it relies upon, it should also attend to the nuances of the particular contexts in which neuroethical arguments are made, and neuroethical concepts deployed.

Anti-gay attitudes have declined in the U.S. The magnitude, speed, and demographic scope of this change have been impressive especially in comparison with prejudice against other marginalized groups. We develop a philosophically-informed psychological account of the unique decline in anti-gay bias in the context of important cultural and political conditions. We highlight two key psychological mechanisms: interpersonal connection and social category classification. First, many people have discovered that a close friend, family member, or admired individual is gay, motivating them to identify the harm and discrimination faced by the individual they know, and catalyzing moral consistency reasoning such that they generalize this interpersonal insight to strangers. Second, many people have taken an essentialist stance toward social categories, including sexual orientation, leading them to infer that being gay is genetically determined and not subject to free choice or moral responsibility, nor mutable and worth attempting to change. We contrast this with the relationship between essentialism and attitudes toward women and people of color, and provide an account of the difference. This psychological account has implications for the future decline of anti-gay attitudes, in the U.S. and other countries, along with the nascent decline of anti-trans attitudes.