WHEN society looks to scientists for answers to ethical questions, how should they respond? As neuroscience in particular sheds more light on what makes us human, it is confronted with some of the most challenging problems that society faces. Will advances in the field change our ideas about morality, responsibility and the law? Should they?
In some areas, new findings can help tackle these issues – the ethical dilemma of when an embryo has the moral status of a human being, for example. But in others, neuroscientists are being asked to weigh in when in fact they shouldn’t. Neuroscience has…
