Teaching Fellow
With Dr. Steve Hyman;ETHERSON 45, GENED1064: Brains, Identity, and Moral AgencyAll human thoughts, emotions, decision-making, and actions result from the workings of our brains. Neuroscience, genetics, and other disciplines are yielding increasingly detailed insights into the mechanisms by which human brains develop, operate, and change with experience. This science is predominantly intended to improve the prediction, prevention, and treatment of brain disorders. However, potential applications of new technologies are broader than health and many are proving difficult to regulate or control. Some new technologies permit ‘reading’ of content directly from our brains; others predict cognitive and behavioral traits from our genomes. Several new technologies make it possible to ‘write’ directly into our brains using electrical or magnetic stimulation or to alter brain function through gene replacement, silencing, or editing. Such new insights into brain function and emerging neurotechnologies raise profound ethical and policy questions. In this course, we will consider such topics as genetic prediction of cognitive ability and behavior, gene editing, the constructed nature of memory and human narrative identity, memory editing, cognitive enhancement, brain–computer interfaces, and the implications of mechanistic understandings of brain function for concepts of moral agency and culpability.