Neuroethics midterm

Gray matter vs. white matter

Gray matter has neuron cell bodies for local processing; white matter has axon tracts connecting regions.

Region-to-function mapping

Brain areas do not have single jobs; one area supports multiple tasks, and each task relies on a network of areas.

EEG

Records scalp electrical activity with good timing info but poor spatial precision.

BOLD fMRI

Measures indirect blood oxygenation associated with neural activity; good spatial info, slow and indirect.

Lesions and stimulation

Tests causal brain roles; limited by damage spread, network effects, and compensation.

Matching method to question

Choose instruments by need: timing (EEG), location (fMRI), or causal contribution (lesion/stimulation).

Reverse inference

The neuroimaging practice of inferring the engagement of a specific cognitive or emotional process from observed activation in a particular brain region. This reasoning is logically problematic because brain regions exhibit many-to-many mapping rather than unique functional dedication, meaning regional activity alone cannot confirm a specific mental state without established selectivity and converging behavioral evidence.

Strengthening reverse inference

Requires evidence of regional selectivity plus converging evidence from other methods and psychological measures.

Empirical vs. normative claims

Empirical claims state what is; normative claims state what ought to be.

Ethics of neuroscience vs. neuroscience of ethics

Ethics of neuroscience addresses research morals; neuroscience of ethics studies neural bases of moral judgment.

Consequentialism

Evaluates actions solely by their outcomes.

Utilitarianism

A consequentialist view focused on maximizing overall well-being.

Deontology

Judges actions by moral duty rather than consequences.

Virtue ethics

Focuses on character and practical wisdom.

Four principles (applied ethics)

Autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence, and justice.

Neural explanation vs. excuse

Neural explanation does not excuse unless tied to impairment of a relevant capacity.

Responsibility judgment path

Observation, psychological impairment evidence, then ethical premises about excuse.

May's factors for freedom

Available alternatives, guidance by reasons, and alignment with commitments.

Why freedom comes in degrees

Capacities for understanding, control, and revision vary among individuals.

Values and good conduct

An action can express one's values and still be morally bad.

Determinism

A fixed past and natural laws permit only one future.

Fatalism

An outcome occurs regardless of what we think or do.

Determinism vs. fatalism and deliberation

Under determinism, deliberation helps cause action; under fatalism, it makes no difference.

Compatibilism

Freedom and responsibility are compatible with determinism.

Incompatibilism

Freedom is not compatible with determinism.

Cautions on compatibilism and indeterminism

Compatibilism does not prove determinism is true, and indeterminism (randomness) does not give a person control.

Dispute over 'able to act otherwise'

The debate over whether alternate choices require the exact same past, or merely different reasons.

Physicalism

The mind is physical; mental states depend on or are brain states.

Epiphenomenalism

Conscious states are caused by brain processes but do not cause actions.

Libet's task and finding

Neural preparation to move began before reported awareness of the urge.

Argument from bypassing

The claim that conscious choices do not cause actions because brain activity happens first.

Objections to Libet-based argument

Early brain activity may not mark a final decision, and simple movement tasks do not generalize to complex, real-world choices.

Urge, intention, action sequence

Unconscious urges can prompt conscious intentions that contribute to action, avoiding bypassing.

May's corporate model of agency

The whole person is agent; conscious and unconscious processes cooperate like a corporation.

Skilled action and precommitment

Mechanisms showing that intentional agency does not require continuous conscious monitoring: skilled action relies on automated behavioral execution that remains guided by overarching goals and values, while precommitment deliberately structures future options in advance so that reflective reasons govern downstream conduct.

Skilled action vs. impaired capacity

Skilled action is guided by values; impaired actions are different in kind.

Skeptic's origins objection

Responsibility is challenged because we did not choose the circumstances forming our values.

Reply to origins objection

Responsibility rests on capacities to revise values, though skeptic notes those are unchosen too.

Switch vs. footbridge cases

Most approve diverting a trolley (switch) but reject pushing a person (footbridge).

Explanation vs. justification of trolley responses

Psychological explanation of moral responses is not an ethical justification for them.

Greene's proposal

A dual-process model of moral judgment asserting that direct, personal moral violations (such as the footbridge case) elicit prepotent, automatic socio-emotional responses that generate deontological intuitions. Consequently, making a utilitarian decision in personal dilemmas requires slower, deliberate cognitive control to actively override this emotional interference.

Greene et al. (2001) comparison

An fMRI study contrasting 'personal' moral dilemmas (e.g., the footbridge case) with 'impersonal' (e.g., the switch case) and non-moral dilemmas. Personal moral dilemmas showed significantly higher activation in brain regions linked to emotion (such as the medial prefrontal cortex, posterior cingulate cortex, and angular gyrus), whereas impersonal dilemmas showed greater engagement in working memory and cognitive control areas (such as the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex). Furthermore, participants who made utilitarian judgments in personal dilemmas exhibited significantly longer response times, indicating that slower, deliberative cognitive control was recruited to override prepotent socio-emotional intuitions.

Limits of Greene's interpretation

Supported by imaging and RTs, but limited by reverse inference and confounds.

Dual-process theory

Contrasts automatic intuitive responses with slower, deliberate processing.

Process vs. ethical theory

A cognitive process differs from an ethical theory; one judgment doesn't define a theory.

Rationalism vs. sentimentalism

Rationalism bases moral judgment on reason; sentimentalism bases it on emotion.

May's challenge to reason/emotion divide

Affect guides learning, inference can be automatic, and fast judgments can be reasonable.

Somatic marker hypothesis

Bodily emotional signals guide decision-making, showing emotion supports good reasoning.

Debunking argument structure

Showing that a belief comes from an unreliable process, which removes its justification unless backed by independent evidence.

Why origin is not enough for debunking

Origin alone doesn't establish unreliability; explicit evidence of unreliability is needed.

Shared circuits for moral judgment

The empirical finding in neuroimaging that moral evaluation does not depend on a dedicated, domain-specific 'moral organ' or module. Instead, moral cognition recruits overlapping, domain-general neural networks that support broader psychological capacities, such as theory of mind (inferring intentions and mental states), empathy and affective processing, decision valuation, and executive control.

Greene 2001 findings vs. philosophical argument

Keep experimental findings separate from broader consequentialist philosophical arguments.

May's reply on deontological debunking

Odd cases mislead; actual reliability of cognitive processes needs proper comparison.

Explaining vs. debunking a moral intuition

Explaining shows origins; debunking requires proving the origin process is unreliable.

Central puzzle of addiction

Why use persists despite severe costs, separated from cause theory and blame.

Craving

A strong desire to use a substance.

Physical dependence

Biological adaptation to a drug, often accompanied by withdrawal.

Pickard's explanatory target

Persistent use despite evident, severe costs to the person's own good.

Why dependence/desire alone doesn't prove addiction

Both can occur without persistent use despite severe costs.

Wanting vs. liking

Motivation to obtain a drug (wanting) differs from enjoying it (liking).

Unable to refrain vs. very difficult to refuse

Compulsion means inability; difficulty means refusal is hard but possible.

Evidence against universal irresistibility

People deliberately refrain when alternatives change, showing potential control.

Habit (learning theory sense)

Responding relatively insensitive to the current value of an outcome.

Goal-directed action

Responds flexibly to the expected outcome and its value.

Outcome devaluation test

Lowering outcome value drops goal-directed behavior while habitual behavior persists.

Goal-directed use and harm

Being goal-directed does not make drug use harmless or easy to change.

Reward prediction error

Sensitivity to outcomes relative to expectations drives learning.

Sripada's common currency

A shared neural scale of subjective value used to compare different options and guide choices.

Decision value vs. person's good

Decision value is situational attractiveness, not overall well-being.

Brain disease model three claims

The three core assertions defining the brain disease model of addiction: 1) Medical disease status — addiction is classified as a chronic, relapsing brain disease rather than a moral failing or lifestyle choice; 2) Neural pathology explanation — persistent drug use and vulnerability are caused by underlying neurobiological dysfunctions and structural/chemical brain changes; and 3) Compulsion and loss of control — these neuroadaptations drive compulsive behavior that significantly diminishes or eliminates voluntary control over drug-seeking.

Brain change vs. dysfunction objection

Learning changes the brain too; dysfunction requires an independent failure account.

Stronger brain disease account

Allows retained choice and responsiveness while arguing for neural impairment.

Social model of addiction

Conditions shape available alternatives, though social influence alone doesn't explain everything.

Pickard's psychology first

Starts with what continued use does for the person, integrating neuroscience.

May's disorder model

Recognizes harmful patterns and multiple causes while preserving individual differences.

Control on occasion vs. over pattern

Single-occasion refusal differs from reliable control across repeated cravings.

Professed values, actual values, well-being

A conceptual framework in the philosophy of agency showing how motivational alignment and flourishing can pull in different directions during addiction: 1) Professed values are the goals, principles, and desires an individual explicitly endorses, claims to prioritize, or consciously identifies with upon reflection (such as family, career, or sobriety); 2) Actual values reflect operative priorities evidenced by persistent behavioral choices, trade-offs, and actions over time; and 3) Well-being represents what objectively serves the person's flourishing, physical health, and long-term thriving. In substance addiction, a person may verbally endorse recovery, yet their moment-to-moment decisions prioritize substance use, neither of which necessarily advances their genuine well-being.

Why Pickard weights self-determination

Presumes people ordinarily decide how to lead their own lives.

Changing values problem in addiction

If addiction alters values, questioning why the earlier self or current endorsement wins.

Responsibility vs. active blame

Responsibility involves understanding and control; active blame is a punishing attitude.

Responsibility without active blame

Permits accountability, repair, and support without hostile blame.

Ethics of intervention responses

Help offers, boundaries, and overriding refusals require distinct justifications.

Reasonable expectations factors

What is owed to others, costs of acting differently, and available support.

Empirical vs. normative claims

Descriptive statements about how the world actually is, verifiable or falsifiable through observation, measurement, and scientific investigation (such as neuroimaging or behavioral data), contrasted with prescriptive or evaluative statements concerning how things ought to be, what is morally right, or what actions are justified. In neuroethics, descriptive facts about brain function cannot logically establish moral duties or values without independent bridging ethical principles (the is-ought distinction).

Epistemic innocence

Epistemic innocence

The thesis that an epistemically flawed mental state (such as delusion) can provide significant epistemic benefits when no accessible, less costly rational alternative exists.

Descriptive (Facts / What Is)

Describes the physical world, psychological facts, or brain activity

Example of descriptive

Brain scans show that thinking about pushing someone off a bridge activates emotional brain regions

Normative (Values / What Ought to Be)

Makes a judgment about good, bad, right, wrong, or what generates the best outcomes

Normative example

It is wrong to push someone off a bridge

Descriptive-Normative Gap

The distinction between factual descriptions of behavior and ethical evaluations of that behavior. A physical fact by itself can never tell you whether something is good, bad, right, or wrong.

How to get from descriptive to normative

To jump from a brain scan (fact) to a moral conclusion (value), you must add a bridge rule (a normative premise).