Neuroethics in Asia

A s i a n B i o e t h i c s R e v i e w J u n e 2 0 0 9 Vo l u m e 1 , I s s u e 2 152 Neuroethics in Asia Neuroethics is a recent discipline which has been enframed within Western bioethical approaches. So far bioethicists and philosophers of science have regarded the emergence of biotechnologies primarily in terms of Western morals and principles, which place high value on human autonomy and agency. This article will argue for the need of an Asian neuroethics which is sensitive to the diversity of Asian cultures. Neuroethics is a recent theoretical approach which includes bioethics, neuroscience , neuropharmacology, psychiatry and psychopharmacology. Neuroethics was developed mainly from the United States; the term “neuroethics” was first coined by the American William Safire.1 Unsurprisingly, much of the theoretical analyses of current neuroethics incorporate Western ethical and cultural ideas and neuroethics pre-occupation with personhood and agency. A popular area of Western neuroethics deals with the advent of biotechnologies such as neuroimaging and its legal and moral implications. For example, neuroscience has challenged Western religious beliefs of selfhood by stating the human “soul is an illusion” and that human experience is reducible to brain activity.2 Questions arising from neuroimaging and neurodiagnostics include how these two technologies inform our knowledge of personhood. Do advances in neuroscience enable the brain to be subject to manipulation by outside agencies?3 In this article I propose that there needs to be more theoretical analysis of Asian neuroethics. This area has received scant theoretical attention. More analysis of Asian neuroethics is important for three reasons. Firstly, the Asian continent comprises the largest human societies. Second, Asian cultures consist of various views of personhood and agency which differ from Western approaches. Many Asian societies are also undergoing rapid social change such as increasing Westernisation, which challenge traditional values. Such changes are evinced by increasing use of Western bio-medicine and use of pharmacological substances I N S I G H T 152–157 Asian Bioethics Review June 2009 Volume 1, Issue 2 153 as well as medical enhancement interventions. The growth of an Asian middle class has also increased the need to construct a range of bioethical approaches that reflects the “world view of the people of respective regions with the same cultural background”.4 From this viewpoint the advent of a solely Western orientated neuroethical approach is difficult to sustain in Asian societies. For example, the application of neuroimaging in the United States tends to focus on neuro-marketing, critical survey, juridical processes, and “revealing the identities of terrorists”.5 In contrast, in Japan neuroimaging has been mainly applied to child education and diagnosis of brain diseases.5 Additionally, in Japan “android science” and “the impact of robotics for neuroethics” warrants the need for a Japanese genre of neuroethics.6 Thirdly, Asian neuroethics, I argue, needs to be developed in order to examine the interplay between neuroscience and Asian social and cultural institutions. As I will show, Asian cultural systems offer unique vantage points for understanding alternate insights of the brain and body. It is unwise for Western neuroethicists to dismiss non-Western cultural beliefs of the brain since such beliefs may “engage with the moral ideas and with the medical systems in non-Western cultures.”20 Asian Religions and Neuroethics An understanding of Asian cultures and their approach to neuroethics cannot ignore the strong religious and moral undercurrents in Asia, mainly Hindu, Buddhist, Confucianism, and animist based doctrines. These doctrines are both influential and inform Asian people’s understanding of medicine and the body. The reductionist and mechanistic interpretations of the brain and body which exemplify Western neuroscience are not found in Hindu and Buddhist conceptions regarding the brain. Several points regarding Hindu and Buddhist conceptions of the brain in relation to incarnational theory are pertinent here. First, both Hinduism and Buddhism espouse that human beings live “successive incarnations of the same universal structure”.7 This implies that unlike the Judaeo-Christian religions, which view the separation of body and soul upon death, in Hinduism and Buddhism such a clear cut separation between body and soul...