The Governance of Dual-Use Neuroscience

Abstract

Given the history of major misuse, for hostile purposes, of advances in science and technology, perhaps the most likely outcome over coming decades is that precisely the same thing will happen to the ongoing advances in neuroscience. Then, as Meselson1 warned, ‘therein could lie unprecedented opportunities for violence coercion, repression or subjugation’. It is important, however, to grasp that this need not necessarily happen.