While I agree in principle both with Banja's (2011) moral relativist claim that there are no absolute moral categories and with his anti-essentialist position (Hauskeller 2009b), it seems to me tha...

John Banja (2011) proposes to criticize the argumentative strategy of some moral conservatives whom he identifies as using illicit essentialist language. Of Kass's and Sandel's arguments concerning...

It is always gratifying when another scholar endorses one's own publicly stated position on a controversial matter. It was therefore with distinct appreciation that I read John Banja's article crit...

Banja (2011) nimbly analyzes how a particular strain of conceptual myopia corrodes the rigor of “moral conservative” arguments in bioethics, particularly on the topic of human enhancement. We find...

A splendid feature of AJOB Neuroscience is its allowing the target article's author not only to convey his or her thanks but also to fashion a reply to the commentators who submitted thoughtful res...

Neuroethics applies cognitive neuroscience for prescribing alterations to conceptions of self and society, and for prescriptively judging the ethical applications of neurotechnologies. Plentiful normative premises are available to ground such prescriptivity, however prescriptive neuroethics may remain fragmented by social conventions, cultural ideologies, and ethical theories. Herein we offer that an objectively principled neuroethics for international relevance requires a new meta-ethics: understanding how morality works, and how humans manage and improve morality, as objectively based on the brain and social sciences. This (...) new meta-ethics will simultaneously equip neuroethics for evaluating and revising older cultural ideologies and ethical theories, and direct neuroethics towards scientifically valid views of encultured humans intelligently managing moralities. Bypassing absolutism, cultural essentialisms, and unrealistic ethical philosophies, neuroethics arrives at a small set of principles about proper human flourishing that are more culturally inclusive and cosmopolitan in spirit. This cosmopolitanism in turn suggests augmentations to traditional medical ethics in the form of four principled guidelines for international consideration: empowerment, non-obsolescence, self-creativity, and citizenship. (shrink)