Overview

A survey of the emerging field of neuroethics that calls for a multidisciplinary, pragmatic approach for tackling key issues and improving patient care. Today the measurable health burden of neurological and mental health disorders matches or even surpasses any other cluster of health conditions. At the same time, the clinical applications of recent advances in neuroscience are hardly straightforward. In Pragmatic Neuroethics, Eric Racine argues that the emerging field of neuroethics offers a way to integrate such specialties as neurology, psychiatry, and neurosurgery with the humanities and social sciences, neuroscience research, and related healthcare professions, with the goal of tackling key ethical challenges and improving patient care. Racine provides a survey of the often diverging perspectives within neuroethics, offers a theoretical framework supported by empirical data, and discusses the neuroethical implications of such issues as media coverage of neuroscience innovation and the importance of public concerns and lay opinion; nonmedical use of pharmaceuticals for performance enhancement; and the discord between intuitive notions about consciousness and behavior and the scientific understanding of them. Racine proposes a pragmatic neuroethics that combines pluralistic approaches, bottom-up research perspectives, and a focus on practical issues (in contrast to other more theoretical and single-discipline approaches to the field). [He discusses ethical issues related to powerful neuroscience insights into the mechanisms underlying moral reasoning, cooperative behavior, and such emotional processes as empathy.] In addition, he outlines a pragmatic framework for neuroethics, based on the philosophy of emergentism, which identifies conditions for the meaningful contribution of neuroscience to ethics, and sketches new directions and strategies for meeting future challenges for neuroscience and society. Basic Bioethics series

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9780262014199

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Reviews

Valuable for serious scholars of the history of bioethics and the relationships between media and science. Choice

A wide-ranging exploration of neuroethics by one of the field's leaders. Racine's book reflects his commitment to clinical bioethics as well as his broad perspective on the field. He has given us a wonderful account of 'pragmatic neuroethics.' --Martha J. Farah, Director, Center for Neuroscience and Society, University of Pennsylvania Progress in neuroscience is advancing human self-understanding and creating hope for the treatment of devastating neuropsychiatric diseases. At the same time, this progress has raised a host of significant issues for ethics and policy. Eric Racine provides an intelligent and lucid overview of the emerging field of neuroethics that I hope will be widely read. --Steven E. Hyman, Provost of Harvard University and Professor of Neurobiology, Harvard Medical School Pragmatic Neuroethics is an important contribution to the growing literature on the ethical questions raised by clinical applications of the new brain research. Its sophisticated philosophical and scientific analysis is based on impeccable scholarship. Highly recommended. --Jonathan D. Moreno, David and Lyn Silfen University Professor and Professor of Medical Ethics and of History and Sociology of Science, University of Pennsylvania

Author Information

Eric Racine is Director of the Neuroethics Research Unit at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal and Assistant Research Professor at the Clinical Research Institute of Montreal. He also holds appointments at the University of Montreal (Medicine, Preventive and Social Medicine, and Bioethics) and McGill University (Neurology and Neurosurgery and Biomedical Ethics).

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