The Practical Ontologist
»The Practical Ontologist« is a compendium of online philosophical production. Every few hours it automatically aggregates, analyzes, and updates.

Featured Article · Philosophical Disquisitions

Episode #27 - Gilbert on the Ethics of Predictive Brain Implants

In this episode I am joined by Frédéric Gilbert. Frédéric is a philosopher and bioethicist who is affiliated with quite a number of universities and research institutes around the world. He is currently a Scientist Fellow at the University of Washington (UW), in Seattle, US but has a concomitant appointment with the Department of Medicine, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. On top of that he is an ARC DECRA Research Fellow, at the University of Tasmania, Australia. We talk about the ethics of predictive brain implants.You can download the episode here or listen below. You can also subscribe on Stitcher or iTunes (the RSS feed is here). Show Notes0:00 - Introduction1:50 - What is a predictive brain implant?5:20 - What are we currently using predictive brain implants for?7:40 - The three types of predictive brain implant16:30 - Medical issues around brain implants18:45 - Predictive brain implants and autonomy22:40 - The effect of advisory implants on autonomy35:20 - The effect of automated implants...

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Episode #27 - Gilbert on the Ethics of Predictive Brain Implants
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On the old saw, “Remember your enemies are human too”

The notion that political enemies are human, too, sharing our common human hopes and fears, triumphs and vulnerabilities, is often deployed in a way to downplay political division and enmity. In reality, though, the fact that our enemies are human, too, is what makes them morally accountable. If they were inhuman monsters who thrived on death and suffering, then we would expect nothing of them but sadism. The fact that they share our common humanity, that they have experienced love and pain and disappointment and satisfaction just like us, is what makes it so intolerable that they would, for instance, vote to take away people’s access to health care just because they said they would, with no plausible narrative for why such a thing is beneficial as public policy or even as an act of political expediency. The fact that John McCain would get up off his deathbed to participate in this cruel farce does not make him a hero, it makes him a bad person. He had a perfectly valid ... Read More ›

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