Neuroscience at societal scales: an expert workshop
Workshop organized by Patrick Haggard (University College London), Paris IAS fellow
Presentation
How will growing knowledge about human neurobiology change our social and cultural concepts of human nature? Modern scientific investigations shed increasing light on the mechanisms that make us who we are – for example, why we may be aggressive, or empathetic. The application and status of that knowledge are largely undebated. Could it, and should it be used as a basis for social or political decisions, for instance? To give one example, many governments currently exploit recent knowledge about human decision-making to ‘nudge’ citizens into appropriate behaviours, such as payment of taxes and fines. At the same time, the use of neuromechanistic knowledge at societal levels raises profound human and ethical problems. Historical precedents show it is dangerously open to abuses, such as pseudo-scientific defence of eugenics or other harmful practices. Moral philosophers may view it as crossing the red line between ‘is’ and ‘ought’. Medical science has correctly prioritised duty of care to the individual patient, and has generally avoided engaging how underpinning neurobiological knowledge might be relevant to human at societal scales.
This meeting convenes a small group of experts, working across neuroscience, medicine, psychology and philosophy. The group will consider how mechanistic scientific knowledge about the origins of human behaviour might constrain ideas about how humans should live, and how societies might be run. Questions addressed will include: How will the neuroscientific understanding of human nature influence our societies in the future? What moral red lines mark the divide between science serving humanity, and science controlling humanity? Is such scientific control necessarily wrong, or is it already implicitly accepted and widespread?
Program
9:00 Arrival, registration
9:15 Welcome and Opening remarks
Enhancement and engineering
9:30 Patrick Haggard, IEA de Paris, UCL
10:00 Itzhak Fried, IEA de Paris, UCLA
10:30 Discussion
10:45 Coffee
Autonomy and decision
11:15 Sofia Bonicalzi, University College London
11:45 Mathias Pessiglione, Institut du Cerveau et de la Moelle épinière
12:15 Discussion
12:30 Lunch
Persuasion and geopolitics
14:00 Julian Marewski, Université de Lausanne
14:30 Nicholas Wright, University of Birmingham
15:15 Discussion
15:30 Coffee
Neurogovernment and policy
1600 Shane O’Mara, Trinity College institute of Neuroscience
1630 Discussion
16:45 Concluding remarks, general discussion, future directions (Patrick Haggard)
17:30 Close
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Neurobiological knowledge and human nature 01 May 2016 - 31 May 2016 |
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