Neuroethics and fMRI

Here’s a sociologist worrying that we’ll be classifying kids on the basis of their fMRI:

At the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association in 1968, the social activist Martin Nicolaus leveled a blistering critique at traditional criminologists and sociologists. He said — and I am paraphrasing here because it was a panel discussion, not a paper — you people have your eyes down and your hands up, while you should have your eyes up and your hands down.

He was speaking language that social scientists of the era would have easily understood. “Eyes down” meant that almost all the research on deviance and crime was focused on the poor and their behavior, while “hands up” meant that the support for such research was coming from the rich and powerful — from foundations, the government, and corporations. Conversely, of course, “eyes up” meant turning one’s research focus to the study of the pathological behavior of the elite and privileged, and “hands down” meant giving more of a helping hand to the excluded, impoverished, and disenfranchised. What was true of the social scientists’ almost monomaniacal attention to the deviance of the poor in the 1960s is even truer of the neuroscientists of the last decade’s vanguard research.

A common tactic is to do brain scans on people who have already displayed violent or aggressive behavior. While this will net the adolescent boys in juvenile correctional facilities, it will surely miss the spawning white-collar bandits in energy markets or subprime home loans.

This is from the Chronicle of Higher Education. You can see where this is going can’t you? Let’s brain scan Hank Paulson. Somehow I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Jim