At this stage(the 3rd year), the main target of our research is <building up ethical foundations for brain science and cerebral nerve researches>. Brain science deals not just with the physical attributes and mechanism of the body part itself, but als ...
At this stage(the 3rd year), the main target of our research is <building up ethical foundations for brain science and cerebral nerve researches>. Brain science deals not just with the physical attributes and mechanism of the body part itself, but also with both relations between the mind and the body, or more specifically, people's psychological state and behavioral style. In this sense, today, researches on the brain mechanism, which has remain unknown, are given spotlights from any kinds of disciplines ranging from the humanities to natural science and to social science. In association, accomplishments from brain science seem to be reduced into the interpretations of problems with interpersonal relations, or broadly, social problems. In the past, for example, extreme murder cases were the focus of psychological analysis that viewed those cases as social phenomena and tried to look into backgrounds behind which persons who committed the murders had grown up. But now, such analysis is giving way to the examination of those persons' brain images, determining how much their brains are different from ordinary people's and pointing out the motives and punishability of the murders. It is people called psychopath who can be best fit for by these moves. In the meantime, the advancement of neuro medicine provides people who are mentally disabled(disordered) with brain treatment in a way of planting chips into the brain or medicating anti-psychotic drugs and makes it possible to recommend brain transplantation to brain-dead people. Even more, there are signs that we will see the surgery of brain exchange between hybrid creatures including humans in the future. Thus, the field of human research may come to face unexpected situations as both scientific technology and medicine develop dramatically. In other words, it is probable that brain science will cause ethical dilemmas that the mankind haven't experienced ever. Under this circumstances, this study put its purpose on examining possible problems with brain science and brain treatment researches in organized manners and building up ethical foundations against those problems. For this purpose, the study discusses (1) brain information leakage and informed consent in association with the technology and research of cerebral nerve measurement : human rights protection, (2) benefits from anti-psychotic drug medication and electric stimulation therapy and their fair division, (3) brain and human subjectivity : free will and ethical responsibility as the being of integrated personality and (4) the establishment of neuroethics as the basis of interdisciplinary researches and as an integrated ethics.