•  1382
    Public Attitudes Toward Cognitive Enhancement
    with Nicholas S. Fitz, Roland Nadler, Praveena Manogaran, and Eugene W. J. Chong
    Neuroethics 7 (2): 173-188. 2013.
    Vigorous debate over the moral propriety of cognitive enhancement exists, but the views of the public have been largely absent from the discussion. To address this gap in our knowledge, four experiments were carried out with contrastive vignettes in order to obtain quantitative data on public attitudes towards cognitive enhancement. The data collected suggest that the public is sensitive to and capable of understanding the four cardinal concerns identified by neuroethicists, and tend to cautious…Read more
  •  883
    Digital Wellness and Persuasive Technologies
    with Laura Specker Sullivan
    Philosophy and Technology 34 (3): 413-424. 2019.
    The development of personal technologies has recently shifted from devices that seek to capture user attention to those that aim to improve user well-being. Digital wellness technologies use the same attractive qualities of other persuasive apps to motivate users towards behaviors that are personally and socially valuable, such as exercise, wealth-management, and meaningful communication. While these aims are certainly an improvement over the market-driven motivations of earlier technologies, th…Read more
  •  100
    Given the ubiquity and centrality of social and relational influences to the human experience, our conception of self-governance must adequately account for these external influences. The inclusion of socio-historical, externalist considerations into more traditional internalist accounts of autonomy has been an important feature of the debate over personal autonomy in recent years. But the relevant socio-temporal dynamics of autonomy are not only historical in nature. There are also important, a…Read more
  •  95
    Stigma and Addiction: Being and Becoming
    with Daniel Buchman
    American Journal of Bioethics 9 (9): 18-19. 2009.
    No abstract
  •  70
    What can Neuroscience Contribute to the Debate Over Nudging?
    with Gidon Felsen
    Review of Philosophy and Psychology 6 (3): 469-479. 2015.
    Strategies for improving individual decision making have attracted attention from a range of disciplines. Surprisingly, neuroscience has been largely absent from this conversation, despite the fact that it has recently begun illuminating the neural bases of how and why we make decisions, and is poised for further such advances. Here we address empirical and normative questions about “nudging” through the lens of neuroscience. We suggest that the neuroscience of decision making can provide a fram…Read more
  •  64
    Pre-Authorization: A Novel Decision-Making Heuristic That May Promote Autonomy
    with Fay Niker and Gidon Felsen
    American Journal of Bioethics 16 (5): 27-29. 2016.
    In this commentary on an article by Jennifer Blumenthal-Barby (AJOB 16:5-15, 2016), we discuss how external influences on decisions affect personal autonomy. Specifically, we introduce the idea of “pre-authorization” as an evaluative stance by which an individual gives a certain agent preferential access to influencing her decision-making processes. Influences arising from pre-authorized agents may then be seen as promoting, rather than infringing upon, autonomy. While the idea that an external …Read more
  •  60
    The ambiguity regarding whether a given intervention is perceived as enhancement or as therapy might contribute to the angst that the public expresses with respect to endorsement of enhancement. We set out to develop empirical data that explored this. We used Amazon Mechanical Turk to recruit participants from Canada and the United States. Each individual was randomly assigned to read one vignette describing the use of a pill to enhance one of 12 cognitive, affective or social domains. The vigne…Read more
  •  47
    Public Attitudes Towards Moral Enhancement. Evidence that Means Matter Morally
    with Jona Specker and Maartje H. N. Schermer
    Neuroethics 10 (3): 405-417. 2017.
    To gain insight into the reasons that the public may have for endorsing or eschewing pharmacological moral enhancement for themselves or for others, we used empirical tools to explore public attitudes towards these issues. Participants from the United States were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk and were randomly assigned to read one of several contrastive vignettes in which a 13-year-old child is described as bullying another student in school and then is offered an empathy-enhancing prog…Read more
  •  41
    The debate over the propriety of cognitive enhancement evokes both enthusiasm and worry. To gain further insight into the reasons that people may have for endorsing or eschewing pharmacological enhancement, we used empirical tools to explore public attitudes towards PE of twelve cognitive, affective, and social domains. Participants from Canada and the United States were recruited using Mechanical Turk and were randomly assigned to read one vignette that described an individual who uses a pill t…Read more
  •  39
    The neural basis of human memory is incredibly complex. We argue that the diversity of neural systems underlying various forms of memory suggests that any discussion of enhancing ‘memory’ per se is too broad, thus obfuscating the biopolitical debate about human enhancement. Memory can be differentiated into at least four major systems with largely dissociable neural substrates. We outline each system, and discuss both the practical and the ethical implications of these diverse neural substrates.…Read more
  •  31
    Balancing Autonomy and Decisional Enhancement: An Evidence-Based Approach
    with Noah Castelo and Gidon Felsen
    American Journal of Bioethics 12 (2): 30-31. 2012.
    The American Journal of Bioethics, Volume 12, Issue 2, Page 30-31, February 2012
  •  30
    The challenge of crafting policy for do-it-yourself brain stimulation
    Journal of Medical Ethics 41 (5): 410-412. 2015.
    Transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), a simple means of brain stimulation, possesses a trifecta of appealing features: it is relatively safe, relatively inexpensive and relatively effective. It is also relatively easy to obtain a device and the do-it-yourself (DIY) community has become galvanised by reports that tDCS can be used as an all-purpose cognitive enhancer. We provide practical recommendations designed to guide balanced discourse, propagate norms of safe use and stimulate dial…Read more
  •  27
    Perceptions of Undue Influence Shed Light on the Folk Conception of Autonomy
    with Fay Niker and Gidon Felsen
    Frontiers in Psychology 9 392196. 2018.
    Advances in psychology and neuroscience have elucidated the social aspects of human agency, leading to a broad shift in our thinking about fundamental concepts such as autonomy and responsibility. Here, we address a critical aspect of this inquiry by investigating how people consider the socio-relational nature of their own agency, particularly the influence of others on their perceived control over their decisions and actions. Specifically, in a series of studies using contrastive vignettes, we…Read more
  •  15
    Prototypes or Pragmatics? The Open Question of Public Attitudes Toward Enhancement
    American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 2 (2): 49-50. 2011.
  •  13
    How the Neuroscience of Decision Making Informs Our Conception of Autonomy
    with Gidon Felsen
    American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 2 (3): 3-14. 2011.
    Autonomy, the ability to make decisions for ourselves about ourselves, is among the most prized of human liberties. In this review we reconsider the key conditions necessary for autonomous decision making, long debated by moral philosophers and ethicists, in light of current neuroscientific evidence. The most widely accepted criteria for autonomy are that decisions are made by a rationally deliberative and reflective agent and that these decisions are free of undue external influences. The corpu…Read more
  •  12
    Norman Doidge, The Brain that Changes Itself.1 (review)
    American Journal of Bioethics 8 (1): 62-63. 2008.
  •  11
    Neuroscience Evidence Should be Incorporated Into Our Ethical Practices
    with Gidon Felsen, Louise Whiteley, and Roland Nadler
    American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 1 (4): 36-38. 2010.
  •  10
    The Emotional Impact of ‘Study Drugs’: Unsurprising and Unconvincing
    with Laura Y. Cabrera
    American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 4 (1): 20-21. 2013.
  •  8
    Ethical discourse draws upon information from various disciplines to promote normative conclusions. In this chapter, we review one particular method—the contrastive vignette technique —that has been fruitfully used as a quantitative means of exploring public attitudes towards ethically challenging issues. The chapter serves as a practical guide to the design and use of CVT in neuroethical inquiry, a technique we term experimental neuroethics.
  •  6
    Quantitative Anticipatory Ethical Analysis Should Inform Neurotechnology Development
    with Gidon Felsen
    American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 8 (2): 75-77. 2017.
    Effective neuromodulation of the human brain is a central objective of neuroscience, with clear applications for restoring, and even enhancing, neural function. Whether it is a pill that modifies p...
  •  3
    Having the Capacity for Autonomy Is Insufficient to Provide Meaningful Autonomy
    with Gidon Felsen
    American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 4 (4): 52-53. 2013.
    Dubljević (2013) does an admirable job of revisiting the role of autonomy as a cherished value in modern human affairs. He suggests that it is premature to propose, as we have (Felsen and Reiner 20...