The Need for a Conceptual Expansion of Neuroethics

In “Neuroethics at 15: The Current and Future Environment for Neuroethics” the Emerging Issues Task Force of the INS provides an overview of the current and future topics for neuroethics and the foreseeable challenges that the field will face. The authors note that these challenges, emerging both at individual, societal, and often global levels, are importantly connected to increasing knowledge of the brain and neurotechnical capabilities, to increasing awareness of value diversity and of the need to attend to a global landscape, and to novel applications (commercial, military, governmental) of neuroscientific findings. The overarching theme, the authors note, is expansion. In this commentary we focus on the fourth needed expansion: an expansion in how neuroethics and its methodologies are conceived and how neuroethical issues should be approached. Accordingly, we explore the key role that conceptual analysis plays in normative discussions, in refining our empirical knowledge, and in fostering a clearer and more reliable vision on how to respond the many philosophical issues raised by neuroscientific knowledge and neurotechnologie