Proactive epigenesis and ethical innovation: A neuronal hypothesis for the genesis of ethical rules

Epigenetics, ethics, law and society: A multidisciplinary review of descriptive, instrumental, dialectical and reflexive analyses

Epigenetics, defined as 'the study of mitotically and/or meiotically heritable changes in gene function that cannot be explained by changes in DNA sequence', has emerged as a promissory yet controversial field of scientific inquiry over the past decade. Scholars from many disciplines have formulated both optimistic and cautionary claims regarding its potential normative implications. This article provides a comprehensive review of the nascent literature at the crossroads of epigenetics, ethics, law and society. It describes nine emerging areas of discussion, relating to (1) the impact of epigenetics on the nature versus nurture dualism, (2) the potential resulting biologization of the social, (3) the meaning of epigenetics for public health, its potential influence on (4) reproduction and parenting, (5) political theory and (6) legal proceedings, and concerns regarding (7) stigmatization and discrimination, (8) privacy protection and (9) knowledge translation. While there is some degree of similarity between the nature and content of these areas and the abundant literature on ethical, legal and social issues in genetics, the potential implications of epigenetics ought not be conflated with the latter. Critical studies on epigenetics are emerging within a separate space of bioethical and biopolitical investigations and claims, with scholars from various epistemological standpoints utilizing distinct yet complementary analytical approaches.

Neuroethics: A Conceptual Approach

In this article, we begin by identifying three main neuroethical approaches: neurobioethics, empirical neuroethics, and conceptual neuroethics. Our focus is on conceptual approaches that generally emphasize the need to develop and use a methodological modus operandi for effectively linking scientific (i.e., neuroscience) and philosophical (i.e., ethics) interpretations. We explain and assess the value of conceptual neuroethics approaches and explain and defend one such approach that we propose as being particularly fruitful for addressing the various issues raised by neuroscience: fundamental neuroethics.

Drug Addiction: From Neuroscience to Ethics

In the present paper, we suggest a potential new ethical analysis of addiction focusing on the relationship between aware and unaware processing in the brain. We take the case of the opioids epidemics to argue that a consideration of both aware and unaware processing provides a more comprehensive ethical framework to discuss the ethical issues raised by addiction. Finally, our hypothesis is that in addition to identified Central Nervous System's neuronal/neurochemical factors contributing to addictive dynamics, the socio-economic status plays a causal role through epigenetic processes, originating the need for additional reward in the brain. This provides a strong base for a socio-political form of responsibility for preventing and managing addiction crisis.

Proactive epigenesis and ethics

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Neuroscience of Childhood Poverty: Evidence of Impacts and Mechanisms as Vehicles of Dialog With Ethics

Several studies have identified associations between poverty and development of self-regulation during childhood, which is broadly defined as those skills involved in cognitive, emotional, and stress self-regulation. These skills are influenced by different individual and contextual factors at multiple levels of analysis (i.e., individual, family, social, and cultural). Available evidence suggests that the influences of those biological, psychosocial, and sociocultural factors on emotional and cognitive development can vary according to the type, number, accumulation of risks, and co-occurrence of adverse circumstances that are related to poverty, the time in which these factors exert their influences, and the individual susceptibility to them. Complementary, during the past three decades, several experimental interventions that were aimed at optimizing development of self-regulation of children who live in poverty have been designed, implemented, and evaluated. Their results suggest that it is possible to optimize different aspects of cognitive performance and that it would be possible to transfer some aspects of these gains to other cognitive domains and academic achievement. We suggest that it is an important task for ethics, notably but not exclusively neuroethics, to engage in this interdisciplinary research domain to contribute analyses of key concepts, arguments, and interpretations. The specific evidence that neuroscience brings to the analyses of poverty and its implications needs to be spelled out in detail and clarified conceptually, notably in terms of causes of and attitudes toward poverty, implications of poverty for brain development, and for the possibilities to reduce and reverse these effects.