The Road Not Mapped: The Neuroethics Roadmap on Research with Nonhuman Primates

Abstract

We have arrived at an inflection point, a moment in history when the sentience, consciousness, intelligence, agency, and even the moral agency of many nonhuman animals can no longer be questioned without ignoring centuries of accumulated scientific knowledge. Nowhere is this more true than in our understanding of nonhuman primates (NHPs). A neuroethics committed to probing the ethical implications of brain research must be able to respond to and anticipate the challenges ahead as brain projects globally prepare to increase the use of NHPs in research. This requires adopting a less anthropocentric focus that includes nonhuman animals within its scope. But the Neuroethics Roadmap represents a missed opportunity to critically examine the future direction of research with NHPs in an ethically-responsive neuroscience.

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Keywords:

• Animal ethics
• neuroethics
• nonhuman primates

This article is referred to by:

Asking the Right Questions about Research with Nonhuman Primates

Reflecting on a Neuroethics Roadmap in a Global Crisis

Ethical Implications of BRAIN 2.0: Beyond Bioethics, Beyond Borders

A “Salad Bowl” Approach to Neuroethics Collaboration

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

The author is a member of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Neuroethics Working Group, but was not a member of the NIH BRAIN Initiative Neuroethics Subgroup. The views expressed here are the author’s own, and do not reflect the position or policy of NIH or the Neuroethics Working Group.

Notes

1 Aulus Cornelius Celsus, a 1 CE Roman encyclopedist, in De medicina Book I, described human vivisection as cruel and atrocious, and posited that it was also scientifically useless because the wounded body would not be like that of an intact living body (Celsus, A. C. 1971). De medicina. Medford, MA, Perseus Digital Library.