Some ethics of deep brain stimulation

Case reports about patients undergoing deep brain stimulation (DBS) for various motor and psychiatric disorders-including Parkinson's disease, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and treatment resistant depression-have sparked a vast literature in neuroethics. Questions about whether and how DBS changes the self have been at the fore. The present chapter brings these neuroethical debates into conversation with recent research in moral psychology. We begin in section "Clinical uses of DBS" by reviewing the recent clinical literature on DBS. In section "DBS and threats to identity," we consider whether DBS poses a threat to personal identity. In section "Surveys of judgments of identity change" we argue for engagement with recent empirical work examining judgments of when identity changes. We conclude in section "Some ethics of DBS" by highlighting a range of ethical issues raised by DBS, including various cross-cultural considerations.

Duke Scholars

Author Walter Sinnott-Armstrong Philosophy