Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023 May;18(3):535-543.
doi: 10.1177/17456916221110222. Epub 2022 Sep 28.

The Scientific Study of Consciousness Cannot and Should Not Be Morally Neutral

Matan Mazor  1   2 , Simon Brown  3 , Anna Ciaunica  4 , Athena Demertzi  5   6 , Johannes Fahrenfort  7   8 , Nathan Faivre  9   10 , Jolien C Francken  11 , Dominique Lamy  12   13 , Bigna Lenggenhager  14 , Michael Moutoussis  2   15 , Marie-Christine Nizzi  16   17   18 , Roy Salomon  19 , David Soto  20   21 , Timo Stein  7 , Nitzan Lubianiker  13   22
Affiliations
Free article

The Scientific Study of Consciousness Cannot and Should Not Be Morally Neutral

Matan Mazor et al. Perspect Psychol Sci. 2023 May.
Free article

Abstract

A target question for the scientific study of consciousness is how dimensions of consciousness, such as the ability to feel pain and pleasure or reflect on one's own experience, vary in different states and animal species. Considering the tight link between consciousness and moral status, answers to these questions have implications for law and ethics. Here we point out that given this link, the scientific community studying consciousness may face implicit pressure to carry out certain research programs or interpret results in ways that justify current norms rather than challenge them. We show that because consciousness largely determines moral status, the use of nonhuman animals in the scientific study of consciousness introduces a direct conflict between scientific relevance and ethics-the more scientifically valuable an animal model is for studying consciousness, the more difficult it becomes to ethically justify compromises to its well-being for consciousness research. Finally, in light of these considerations, we call for a discussion of the immediate ethical corollaries of the body of knowledge that has accumulated and for a more explicit consideration of the role of ideology and ethics in the scientific study of consciousness.

Keywords: allied field: philosophy; application: policy; comparative psychology; consciousness; ethics; metascience.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

LinkOut - more resources