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Impact of Brain Interventions on Personal Identity

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Handbook of Neuroethics

Abstract

Some of the main ethical concerns with brain interventions are related to psychological changes that may alter persons in morally significant ways. This chapter reviews neuroethical attempts at assessing brain interventions by describing them as having an impact on the identity of persons. By discussing clinical case reports involving deep brain stimulation in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease, different meanings attributed to the concept of personal identity in the bioethics literature are disentangled. The concept of forensic personhood is introduced to show that some possible effects of brain interventions are unambiguously detrimental in that they end the affected person’s existence in an important sense. The same holds true for changes in personal identity where a person has changed to such an extent that, eventually, one does not seem to be faced with a person with different characteristics, but with an altogether different person. As well, narrative accounts of personal identity are discussed in some detail as they have multiple normative implications for the assessment of the psychological effects of brain interventions, ranging from legal and ethical to clinical and methodological consequences.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. German Reference Centre for Ethics in the Life Sciences, 53113, Bonn, Germany

    Thorsten Galert

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  1. Thorsten Galert
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Correspondence to Thorsten Galert .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, University of TĂĽbingen, TĂĽbingen, Germany

    Jens Clausen

  2. The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    Neil Levy

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Galert, T. (2015). Impact of Brain Interventions on Personal Identity. In: Clausen, J., Levy, N. (eds) Handbook of Neuroethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_12

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_12

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4706-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4707-4

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