Intervention in the Brain

Politics, Policy, and Ethics


After surveying current knowledge about the brain and describing a wide range of experimental and clinical interventions—from behavior-modifying drugs to neural implants to virtual reality—Blank discusses the political and philosophical implications of these scientific advances. If human individuality is simply a product of a network of manipulable nerve cell connections, and if aggressive behavior is a treatable biochemical condition, what happens to our conceptions of individual responsibility, autonomy, and free will? In light of new neuroscientific possibilities, Blank considers such topics as informed consent, addiction, criminal justice, racism, commercial and military applications of neuroscience research, new ways to define death, and political ideology and partisanship.

Our political and social institutions have not kept pace with the rapid advances in neuroscience. This book shows why the political issues surrounding the application of this new research should be debated before interventions in the brain become routine.

Table of Contents

  1. Contents
  2. Series Foreword
  3. 1. The Human Brain: An Introduction
  4. 2. Brain Intervention: State of the Art
  5. 3. Neuroethics and Neuropolicy
  6. 4. Implications for Political Behavior: Addiction, Sex Differences, and Aggression
  7. 5. Individual Responsibility and the Criminal Justice System
  8. 6. Implications for Social Behavior, Racism, and Conflict
  9. 7. The Media, Commercial and Military Applications, and Public Policy
  10. 8. Neuroscience and the Definition of Death
  11. 9. Politics and the Brain
  12. References
  13. Index
  14. Basic Bioethics