Neuroethics Quotes

“Self-consciousness is, from a naturalistic point of view (in this case neurobiological), not more than a degree of sophistication of neural processes. The emergence of self-conscious states is not a drastic, extravagant, earth-shaking phenomenon.”
― István Aranyosi, The Peripheral Mind: Philosophy of Mind and the Peripheral Nervous System

“Typically, one of the arguments against the ethicalness of chemical castration is that it affects the very core of personhood, part of which is sexual drive and sexual fantasizing, by indirectly acting on the CNS (…) But, I think, an equally good argument could be that it interferes with basic homeostatic processes of the organism, regulated by the autonomic PNS and the endocrine system. Maybe the public tends to agree with chemical castration of sexual offenders, especially of pedophiles, not only because of the terrible acts they have committed, but also because there is a hidden prejudice that the “real or genuine person” of such offenders is a mind that has been captured by hormones, and that there is nothing wrong in “killing off these hormones and liberate the person from their vicious influence” (…) I say it is a prejudice because part of what it means to be a mentally healthy and well adapted individual involves a huge influence of the hormonal component, not only testosterone, but all other hormones, and, as a matter of fact, sexual offenders do not have abnormally high levels of free testosterone.”
― István Aranyosi, The Peripheral Mind: Philosophy of Mind and the Peripheral Nervous System

“[…] And then you notice someone. Amid the family clusters postceremony, the new graduates posing for pictures with Grandma in her wheelchair, the bursts of hugs and laughter, you see the person way in the back, the person who is part of the grounds crew, collecting the garbage from the cans on the perimeter of the event.
Randomly pick any of the graduates. Do some magic so that this garbage collector started life with the graduate's genes. Likewise for getting the womb in which nine months were spent and the lifelong epigenetic consequences of that. Get the graduate's childhood as well-one filled with, say, piano lessons and family game nights, instead of, say, threats of going to bed hungry, becoming homeless, or being deported for lack of papers. Let's go all the way so that, in addition to the garbage collector having gotten all that of the graduate's past, the graduate would have gotten the garbage collector's past. Trade every factor over which they had no control, and you will switch who would be in the graduation robe and who would be hauling garbage cans. This is what I mean by determinism.”
― Robert Sapolsky