The prospects for neuro-exceptionalism: transparent lies, naked minds.
The prospects for neuro-exceptionalism: transparent lies, naked minds.
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神经例外论的前景：透明的谎言，赤裸裸的思想。
DOI：
10.1080/15265160701828576
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发表时间：
2008
期刊：
影响因子：
--
通讯作者：
Wachbroit,Robert
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Wachbroit,Robert
人们相信神经科学和神经技术带来了新的伦理挑战，尤其是在隐私方面，这似乎是基于这样一种信念，即它们产生了一种新的、更私密的或更个人化的信息。这种对“神经例外论”的信仰似乎比影响了公众对基因技术使用的辩论的基因例外论更有说服力。但是，鉴于目前的发展和未来的前景，对神经技术的一些可能应用--识别行为倾向、识别谎言、读心术--的审查，引发了人们对神经例外论的合理性的质疑。在数十部(如果不是数百部)科幻电影和故事中，机器在某些时候被用来确定一个人的真实想法。她真的记得那件可怕的事吗？她说的是真的吗？她真的爱她的丈夫吗？她在作案的那一刻到底在想什么？这一主题对大众想象力的把握很可能是当前对神经科学的一些焦虑的基础。它会像那些科幻小说机器一样，为我们提供关于人们想法和感受的显著不同的信息吗？它是否会得出准确可靠的结论，说明一个人在想什么，或者在想什么，而不管她是否打算或愿意分享这些信息？它会对隐私构成特殊威胁吗？这些担忧是由神经科学和技术的实际发展引发的，特别是在大脑成像方面。我们现在可以看到当人们执行各种认知功能和表现各种情绪时，人们的大脑是什么样子的，我们可以观察到不同年龄、性别和精神诊断的人的大脑图像的显著差异。然而，尽管这些图像似乎揭示了许多以前被隐藏的东西，但我们刚刚提出的一些问题是模糊和不清楚的。我们所说的“截然不同的信息”是什么意思？这难道不是一个程度问题吗？什么构成了“对隐私的特殊威胁”？这不是取决于文化期望和当前的保护措施吗？在这篇文章中，我将致谢：我感谢David Wasserman对早期草稿的宝贵意见。这篇文章的工作部分得到了国家精神卫生研究院MH073685的赠款和国家卫生研究院HG003299的赠款的支持。通信地址：马里兰州大学学院公园，马里兰大学哲学与公共政策研究所罗伯特·沃克布罗特，邮编：20742。电子邮件：rswa@udd。EDU建议我们应该如何解决这些问题，并勾勒出一些答案。
The conviction that neuroscience and neurotechnology pose new ethical challenges, particularly concerning privacy, appears to rest on the belief that they yield a new, more intimate or personal kind of information. This belief in “neuroexceptionalism” may seem more plausible than the belief in genetic exceptionalism that influenced the public debate on the uses of genetic technology. But an examination of some possible applications of neurotechnology—identifying behavioral dispositions, detecting lies, reading minds—raises questions about the plausibility of neuro-exceptionalism, in light of present developments as well as future prospects. In dozens if not hundreds of science fiction movies and stories, a machine is used at some point to determine what someone is really thinking. Does she really remember that terrible event? Is she really telling the truth? Does she really love her husband? What was she really thinking the moment of the crime? The hold of this theme on the popular imagination quite likely underlies some of the current anxiety about neuroscience. Will it provide us with a significantly different kind of information about people’s thoughts and feelings, like those science-fiction machines? Will it yield accurate and reliable conclusions about what is on, or in, a person’s mind, regardless of her intention or willingness to share that information? Will it pose a special threat to privacy? These concerns are provoked by actual developments in neuroscience and technology, particularly in brain imaging. We can now see what people’s brains “look like” when people are performing various cognitive functions and displaying various emotions, and we can observe striking differences in the brain images of people differing in age, gender, and psychiatric diagnosis. Yet, while these images may seem to reveal much that was previously concealed, some of the questions we just raised are vague and unclear. What do we mean by “significantly different kind of information”? Is that not a matter of degree? What constitutes a “special threat to privacy”? Does that not that depend on cultural expectations and current protections? In this article, I willAcknowledgment: I owe thanks to David Wasserman for valuable comments on an earlier draft. Work on this article was supported in part by a grant from the National Institutes of Mental Health MH073685 and from a grant from the National Institutes of Health HG003299. Address correspondence to Robert Wachbroit, Institute for Philosophy and Public Policy, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742. Email: rswa@ umd. edu suggest how we should address these questions and sketch some answers.