© 2009 The Author
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
Philosophy Compass 4/1 (2009): 69–81, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00195.x
Neuroethics: Ethics and the Sciences of
the Mind
Neil Levy*
University of Melbourne
Abstract
Neuroethics is a rapidly growing subfield, straddling applied ethics, moral
psychology and philosophy of mind. It has clear affinities to bioethics, inasmuch
as both are responses to new developments in science and technology, but its scope
is far broader and more ambitious because neuroethics is as much concerned with
how the sciences of the mind illuminate traditional philosophical questions as it
is with questions concerning the permissibility of using technologies stemming
from these sciences. In this article, I sketch the two branches of neuroethics, the
applied and the philosophical, and illustrate how they interact. I also consider
representative themes from each: the ethics of dampening memory and of
cognitive enhancement, on the one hand, and the attack upon the reliability of
deontological intuitions and upon free will, on the other.
The spectacular growth of applied ethics over the past several decades has
been spurred, in important part, by the growth in medical knowledge and
associated technologies. As our powers over life and death have expanded,
so have the potential for these powers to be misused; accordingly, high
quality ethical reflection on the nature and limits of these powers has
come to seem necessary. As a consequence, a whole new subdiscipline was
born, called bioethics. More recently, we have seen an equally dramatic
expansion in our knowledge of the workings of the mind/brain. Our
increasing powers over the mind have led to a similar demand for ethical
reflection, and thus the birth of another new subfield of applied ethics:
neuroethics. Neuroethics is to the sciences of the mind as bioethics is to
the medical sciences.
In one central respect, however, neuroethics is significantly different to
bioethics in its scope and ambitions. Whereas bioethics could be described
as applying the tools of philosophers to a new set of issues, neuroethics
is as much concerned with the nature of the tools it uses as with the
problems to which it seeks to apply them. Since the tools of philosophers
are cognitive, and the sciences of the mind are concerned with the nature
of cognition (broadly understood), the sciences of the mind are concerned
with our tools: with their nature, their strengths and weaknesses and with

70 Neuroethics
© 2009 The Author Philosophy Compass 4/1 (2009): 69–81, 10.1111/j.1747-9991.2008.00195.x
Journal Compilation © 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
their reliability. Hence the neuroethicist is adrift on Neurath’s boat to an
even greater extent than most philosophers: she must address first-
order ethical issues using tools whose very reliability is one of her
concerns
Given the dual focus of neuroethics, on first-order ethical questions
arising from the sciences of the mind, and on the tools the neuroethicist
uses in addressing these questions, neuroethics might be said to have two
distinct branches. Roskies calls these two branches the ethics of neuroscience
and the neuroscience of ethics. The ethics of neuroscience is concerned with
first-order ethical issues; the neuroscience of ethics with normative ethics,
meta-ethics and moral psychology insofar as these branches of philosophy
are illuminated by the sciences of the mind.
The Ethics of Neuroscience
The sciences of the mind offer us a range of apparently unprecedented
powers to intervene in the mind of human beings, some actual, some just
over the horizon, and some very distant (it is a matter of lively dispute
which technologies are distant and which imminent). These powers
arouse a great deal of unease in many people, prompting philosophers to
reflect upon the permissibility of their use. These actual or potential
powers include the ability to enhance cognition, to modify memories and
emotions, and to control or insert beliefs.1 Each of these has been the focus
of sustained ethical reflection. For reasons of space, I shall consider only
the first two topics (see Levy, Neuroethics for discussions of the ability to
control or insert beliefs).
Memory Modification and Enhancement
Existing techniques to modify memories are relatively crude and weak.
These techniques have been developed with therapeutic goals in mind:
either to slow the progress of dementia, in the case of techniques that
might improve memory, or to treat post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
in the case of techniques aimed at weakening specific memories.
Post-traumatic stress disorder is a relatively common, very debilitating
psychiatric illness. It is especially common in emergency services personnel
and soldiers (Kessler et al.). Since it is burdensome for sufferers and for
their families, the treatment of PTSD is prima facie laudable. Obviously,
the best way to deal with the problem is to prevent its occurrence, by
preventing exposure to potentially traumatic events. Given, however,
that the jobs of emergency services personnel and perhaps soldiers are
indispensable, the next best option is to prevent PTSD from arising as a
result of such exposure.
There is now a promising technique in development which might serve
to prevent PTSD. Post-traumatic stress disorder is apparently caused by the