Julia Haas, a philosophy PhD candidate at Emory University, recently wrote a piece for The Neuroethics Blog on Kathinka Evers, entitled: “On ‘Responsible Neuroethics’ and ‘Neuro-rubbish'”. Julia is the graduate intern for the American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience (The official journal of the International Neuroethics Society) and also serves as Managing Editor for The Neuroethics blog. Her dissertation work is entitled, “Weakness of Will: A Case for Integrating Moral Philosophy and the Cognitive Neurosciences.”  Her piece for The Neuroethics Blog can be read below.

In March 2012, Roger Scruton published an article in The Spectator entitled ‘Brain Drain,’ in which he lamented the fact that traditionally humanistic disciplines are increasingly taking neuroscientific findings into account. He characterized the phenomenon as one of “neuroenvy,” – with humanists simply jumping onto the neuroscience bandwagon – and argued that when scholars in the humanities “add the prefix ‘neuro’ to their studies, we should expect their researches to be nonsense.” [1] My first thought was, ‘Oh, for the love of…’

Actually, we prefer the term ‘neuro-rubbish.’

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