Ideas and Ideals

The development of bio- and neurotechnology is significantly changing human reality and perceptions of humans themselves. This results not only in the new opportunities, but threats as well. In such conditions, the problem of discrimination gains topicality, and specialized legal or psychological considerations of this issue are no longer sufficient. This article discusses the potential of neuroethics in research and prevention of discrimination associated with the development of neuroscience and neurotechnology. In the scientific sources, there are various interpretations of neuroethics. Therefore, the problem of discrimination is considered in the scope of different understanding of the subject and methods of neuro-ethics. The research methodology is based on two key principles. 1) Transdisciplinarity is understood as the realization of the philosophical methodology of thinking in post-scientific reality. 2) Any issues of the moral and legal field should have a humanitarian dimension. At the same time, a human is viewed as a specific creature uniquely combining in his being opposite characteristics: biological and social, natural vs. artificial, individual vs. collective, and subjective vs. objective. Therefore, the dialectic methodology of thinking seems to be effective. The empirical basis of the study comprises domestic and foreign publications that raise issues of discrimination in connection with the development of neuroscience and neurotechnology. The author suggests that the complex nature of the phenomenon of discrimination is due to 1) the heterogeneity of social reality; 2) the contradictory biosocial nature of a human, suggesting interaction in terms of "competition vs. cooperation"; 3) ideological attitudes and ideas that justify and reinforce in culture the significance of certain differences and the specific attitude towards them. Our regulatory capabilities are connected with the outlook and cultural mechanisms of the regulation of social life. Therefore, it becomes important how the problem of discrimination is raised and solved. The article analyzes the prospects of political, ideological, ethical, scientific and bioethical statement of the problem. It is shown that the bioethical statement of the problem is most consistent with the current socio-cultural processes. The transdisciplinary nature of bioethics helps to maintain a multidimensional vision of the problem, and preserves and reproduces the contradictory human nature in the conditions of modern technological culture. Neuroethics, interpreted as a new ethic of the neurofuture, generates high risks of discrimination. This is due to the loss of the basis of ethical regulation, i.e. a human with his/her specific nature. Serious risks also arise when ethical phenomena are reduced to neurophysiological processes. Neuroethics, understood as the ethics of neuroscience and neuro-interference, has a low potential for preventing discrimination. It can be found in the accumulation of precedents and problematic situations, which are caused by new opportunities and new needs for the development of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Neuroethics as a part of bioethical discourse on the problem field of neuroscience provides a theoretical and methodological opportunity to estimate and prevent possible risks of discrimination.