Saira Ahmed 2008-10-21

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

The Ethical Brain: The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas by Michael S. Gazzaniga provides readers with an inside look on the ethics of neuroscience through his own research, the research of his colleagues, as well as his work on the President's Council on Bioethics. I believe he does a very good job of showing all aspects of the various moral dilemmas, such as stem cell research, aging, religion, privacy, brain enhancement drugs, memory, etc. with his clear language and examples. Gazzaniga doesn't just present his opinions and facts; instead he helps the reader relate to what he is saying by discussing neuroscience through real world applications using simple terminology and explanations that a newcomer to the field of neuroscience can understand. Gazzaniga breaks the book down into four major parts and uses examples that could affect any one of us on a daily basis to showcase how the brain plays a role in the various ethical dilemmas of today.

Gazzaniga discusses the very controversial topic of the moral status of an embryo in "Life-Span Neuroethics." Many neuroscientists believe that "the beginning of human life worthy of moral status" (16) is at fourteen days in the womb, whereas others believe it is when the brain starts to actually function. Gazzaniga helps the reader to understand the arguments by comparing a fertilized embryo to a Home Depot, an analogy he presented to the President's Council on Neuroscience. When you walk into Home Depot you don't see a bunch of houses sitting in the store; instead you see the necessary materials for construction. An embryo is the same; he states that "A fertilized embryo is not a human - it needs a uterus, and at least six months of gestation and development... to become a human" (11). He does not believe a fourteen day embryo should be given the same moral status as a fully developed embryo. I enjoyed this chapter because it helped me develop my opinions on stem cell research and abortion as they are two very important issues in the current Presidential election.

In "Brain Enhancement" the author talks about genetics, training the brain, and brain enhancement drugs. One topic that is discussed is pregenetic diagnosis (PGD); with PGD we would be able to pick and choose the world's future generation based on their genetic makeup. The technology allows us to analyze an embryo's genes in order to detect chromosomal abnormalities between day three and five after fertilization and if a "bad gene" is detected the embryo can be destroyed. This topic is very controversial because if carried away, this can lead to parents choosing whether or not to have a child based on sex, hair or eye color, intelligence level, etc. Pregenetic diagnosis scares me because it gives us the power to act as Mother Nature and decide for ourselves who will or will not be born. It needs to be monitored carefully to ensure that it is not abused.

Gazzaniga discusses memory, free will, crime, and forensics in "Free Will, Personal Responsibility, and the Law." In his discussion on the courtroom, he dabbles in social psychology. We are constantly affected by hindsight bias, which is our tendency to think that we knew the outcome of a particular situation the entire time. Hindsight bias can be problematic when jurors are told to dismiss inadmissible evidence. This bias occurs as a result of the left side of the brain which handles the interpretation of events. Gazzaniga studies this through his work with "split brain" patients who have had their corpus collosums "cut." It is interesting to learn more about what Gazzaniga himself researches and how it affects his understanding of the many moral dilemmas that our brains face everyday.

The book ends explaining how we believe and what steps are being taken to determining a "universal ethics" in "The Nature of Moral Beliefs and the Concept of Universal Ethics." One controversial issue that Gazzaniga discusses is how the brain plays a very important role in how a person develops their belief in a religion and their sense of faith. The temporal lobe is the area of the brain that most correlates with religion and is the location of temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE). It has been noted that many famous people have had TLE with Geschwind's syndrome; one symptom is hyperreligiosity. This being said, it is possible that many religious leaders of the past have suffered from TLE, like the biblical figure Saul and Islam's Muhammad. The brain has the amazing capability of creating both real and unreal memories, and this may have been the case for these religious figures. I was very intrigued by this chapter because I did not realize that the brain could be so specific; it is amazing that the brain is so specialized that it essentially has its own portion associated with religion.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Gazzaniga's work on relevant moral dilemmas in our world today. Current research is exploring various fields of neuroscience that affect each one of us. His easy to read work makes you think more about the topics that are presented. The end of every chapter includes a "Perspectives" section where Gazzaniga weighs different opinions on the subject matter, including his own. It is good to get different viewpoints on a controversial subject before making your final decision on the matter. Neuroscience is more complicated than the average person may think as it affects not only the brain but a person's way of life, education, personality, actions, friends and family, and much more. Gazzaniga's work on the President's Council on Bioethics is very important because much their work affects our political and social worlds today. This book is a very good addition to required textbook reading of a neuroscience course because it allows the reader to relate to neuroscience on a personal level. I definitely recommend purchasing this book through Amazon; this book is great for anyone from those with an extensive neuroscience background to those who are new to the field.

Cebes 2007-11-23

9 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

Gazzaniga is a neuroscientist picked to serve on the President's Council on Bioethics, and this book is the outcome of that experience. Gazzaniga's worldview is clear in this book: science is the One True Source of all knowledge, while everything else (especially religion and ethics, which he lumps together) is primitive, instinctive and irrational. Thus the implicit message of the book is that science can finally step in and solve our moral dilemmas (as indicated by the subtitle "The Science of Our Moral Dilemmas"). The problem is that scientists are trained to understand facts, whereas ethics is a study of norms: not what people in fact do but what they OUGHT to do. Thus scientists often become incoherent when they write about ethics, as is unfortunately the case here. The author on the one hand wants to see moral decisionmaking as an automatic, evolved mechanism of the brain, but on the other hand carry out his role as bioethicist by making prescriptive recommendations for how we ought to act. But these two projects are impossible to reconcile, and lead Gazzaniga into all sorts of logical confusions. For example, he declares that evolutionary theory suggests that we should use intelligence-enhancing drugs if they become available. This strange argument shows he understands neither evolutionary theory nor ethics. Evolution is a descriptive theory; it does not make any "should" claims at all; moreover, even if we had an evolutionary "instinct" to use such drugs, it would not follow that ethically we ought to. In short, there is no avoiding actually entering into ethical debate on these questions (stem cells, cloning, genetic enhancement, etc.), but this is the one thing the author does not provide. Or in the few cases where he tries to provide it, the results are embarrassing: for example he claims that stem cells were created for research purposes, therefore they have no moral status (by this argument, if you create clones in order to be slaves, they have no moral rights because they were not intended to have any! The Southern slaveholders could have made the same argument about people bred to be slaves). The book is committed to a speculative, unproven (and almost certainly false) claim that there is a "moral instinct" causing us to act certain ways in order to promote survival. But even if there were such an instinct, it would change the fact that we still have to engage in moral debate about what we should do, something the book mostly avoids. The only truly substantial chapter in this book is the one presenting recent findings on the limits of human memory. The author concludes that it is "shocking" how much reliance our criminal justice system places on eyewitness testimony. But even here, the author admits the science is in far too primitive a state to offer much practical advice for the justice system. To his credit, Gazzaniga admits that neuroscience has in the end little to offer to the debate about free will or moral responsibility. But then why did he write this book? The subtitle "The Science of Moral Dilemmas" should perhaps be rewritten as: "Why Science Has Little To Contribute to Moral Dilemmas."

Midwest Book Review 2006-12-11

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

Scientific advancements have led to many ethical quandaries covered elsewhere: THE ETHICAL BRAIN: THE SCIENCE OF OUR MORAL DILEMMAS is something different, surveying the link between increasing knowledge and the formation of new moral principles. It comes from a neuro-scientist who examines emerging social and ethical issues coming from the latest brain research, offering an exploration of interrelated scientific and social issues. From neuroscience in the courtroom affecting legal issues to new perspectives on differences between lab and real-world applications, THE ETHICAL BRAIN is an important acquisition for any collection concerned with medical or scientific ethical issues.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch