A Neuroskeptic's Guide to Neuroethics and National Security

Abstract

This article—informed by science studies scholarship and consonant with the emerging enterprise of “critical neuroscience”—critiques recent neuroscience research, and its current and potential applications in the national security context. The author expresses concern about the subtle interplay between the national security and neuroscience communities, and the hazards of the mutual enchantment that may ensue. The Bush Administration's “war on terror” has provided numerous examples of the abuse of medicine, behavioral psychology, polygraphy, and satellite imagery. The defense and national security communities have an ongoing interest in neuroscience too—in particular, neuroimaging and psychoactive drugs (including oxytocin) as aids to interrogation. Given the seductive allure of neuroscientific explanations and colorful brain images, neuroscience in a national security context is particularly vulnerable to abuse. The author calls for an urgent reevaluation of national security neuroscience as part of a broader public discussion about neuroscience's nontherapeutic goals.

Keywords:

• critical neuroscience
• fMRI
• national security
• neuroimaging
• neuroskepticism
• oxytocin
• psychoactive drugs

This article is based on a plenary lecture of the same title delivered at the Novel Tech Ethics Conference in Halifax, Novia Scotia, in September 2009. The author is indebted to the conference organizers—in particular, Jocelyn Downie and Francoise Baylis—for extending this invitation and providing him with the opportunity to develop his views.

Notes

1. See, for example, Jay Bybee's Memorandum for Alberto Gonzales, dated August 1, 2002, available at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/cheney/torture_memo_aug2002.pdf (last accessed January 4, 2010) and John Yoo's Memorandum for William Haynes of March 14, 2003 at http://www.aclu.org/files/pdfs/safefree/yoo_army_torture_memo.pdf (last accessed January 4, 2010).

2. See http://www.verolabs.com/news.asp (last visited September 20, 2009).

3. Documents on file with author.

4. See, for example, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4313263/ns/technology_and_science-science/ (last visited September 20, 2009).

5. I draw here from the definition of “image” at www.m-w.com.

6. The term is my own, but it draws some inspiration from the notion of “technoscientific imaginaries.” See Marcus (2005).

7. The full text of Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations is available at http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/05/sprj.irq.powell.transcript/ (last accessed September 20, 2009).

8. The images are available at http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17300.htm (last accessed September 20, 2009).

9. See http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/08/11//photography-as-a-weapon/?ref=opinion (last accessed September 20, 2009).

10. See the Report of the Iraq Survey Group (also known as the Duelpher Report), available at https://www.cia.gov/library/reports/general-reports-1/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html (last accessed January 10, 2010).

See http://noliemri.com/products/Overview.htm (last accessed September 20, 2009).