Neuroethics and the Extended Mind

Neil Levy*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Neuroethics offers unprecedented opportunities as well as challenges. The challenges stem from the range of difficult ethical issues, which are confronted by neuroethicists. Issues concerning the nature of consciousness, of personal identity, free will, and so on, are all grist for the neuroethical mill. This article argues that this debate bears centrally on neuroethics and is significant for neuroethics. Whether the best interpretation of the facts to which proponents of the extended mind appeal is that the mind is genuinely extended, or merely embedded, or a reflection on these facts, are not in dispute but they reveal that the domain of neuroethics extends to all the processes and mechanisms subserving cognition, rather than just those processes and mechanisms internal to the skull. Once this fact is recognized both the scope of neuroethics and some of its characteristic concerns will be transformed.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationOxford Handbook of Neuroethics
EditorsJudy Illes, Barbara J. Sahakian, Carole A. Federico, Sharon Morein-Zamir
Place of PublicationOxford
PublisherOxford University Press
Pages285-294
Number of pages10
ISBN (Electronic)9780191743948
ISBN (Print)9780199570706, 0199570701
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2011
Externally publishedYes

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