An Open Letter to Albus Dumbledore

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Religion & Ethics Newsweekly . Archive | PBS - articles relating to bioethics

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The Risk That Failed from William Safire at the New York Times - excerpt:

"Not just neurosurgeons but other brain scientists are thinking long and hard about the morality (right or wrong) and the ethics (fair or unfair) of what such breakthroughs as genomics, molecular imaging and pharmaceuticals will make it possible for them to do.

"In the treatment or cure of brain disease or disability, the public tends to support neuroscience's needs for closely controlled and informed experimentation. But in the enhancement of the brain's ability to learn or remember, or to be cheerful at home or attentive in school, many of the scientists are not so quick to embrace mood-manipulating drugs or a mindless race to enhance the mind.

"The brain's ethical sense may run deeper than we think. 'The essence of ethical behavior,' writes the neuroscientist Antonio Damasio in 'Looking for Spinoza,' his newest book, 'does not begin with humans.' Ravens and vampire bats 'can detect cheaters among the food gatherers in their group and punish them accordingly.' Though human altruism is much further evolved, in one experiment 'monkeys abstained from pulling a chain that would deliver food to them if pulling the chain caused another monkey to receive an electric shock.'"

A tool for thinking through journalism ethics: Ethics Tool