Reiner Research Group

Dr. Reiner’s research group focuses upon what we term as eudaimonic neuroethics, a discipline with investigates the myriad ways in which our ever increasing understanding of the brain enhances our ability to not only be happy, but to live lives filled with meaning – in short, to live well as human beings. In contrast to traditional neuroethics which examines the biomedical implications of advances in the neurosciences, eudaimonic neuroethics focuses upon the impact of technological advances in the neurosciences upon everyday life.

We are surrounded by technologies that seem to hold the promise of happiness, but often they disappoint, saddling us with what Charles Taylor has termed the malaise of modernity; sometimes, a single technology does both. Understanding how advances in the neurosciences affect the likelihood of experiencing eudaimonia is the overarching goal of the research program.

Cognitive enhancers are technologies that improve brain function. Pharmacological cognitive enhancement, the use of drugs to enhance one or another domain of cognition, is a topic of widespread interest in academic discourse, public policy debates, and the popular press, but there is much more information available in the manner of expert opinion than public opinion on the topic. Public attitudes towards pharmacological cognitive enhancers are an under-explored area of investigation. The overarching goal of this research program is to probe public attitudes towards pharmacological cognitive enhancers in an effort to inform future regulatory decision-making.

The primary question that confronts society is not whether pharmacological cognitive enhancers should exist, but rather how they should be distributed if and when effective drugs become available. There are essentially three options - over the counter, regulated by physician prescription, and complete ban. To ascertain which options are most preferred by the general public, we are conducting a large scale survey in which we allow people to share their views on this matter with us.

Four cardinal concerns dominate academic discourse regarding pharmacological cognitive enhancers: (1) Safety - the risks of the drug may outweigh its benefits; (2) Distributive Justice - the cost of the drug might increase the gap between the rich and the poor; (3) Peer Pressure - people might feel pressured to use the drug as it makes the transition from novelty to norm; and (4) Authenticity - success obtained using pharmacological cognitive enhancers might not be viewed as having the same value as that garnered by hard work. Using the constrastive vignette technique, we are exploring public attitudes towards each of these issues.

Selected publications:

Nadler, R, Reiner PB, Prototypes or Pragmatics? The Open Question of Public Attitudes Toward Enhancement. AJOB Neuroscience 2(2):49-50 (2011).

Banjo OC, Nadler, R, Reiner PB, Physician attitudes to cognitive enhancement: safety concerns are paramount. PLoS One 5(12):1-8 (2010). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0014322

Reiner PB, Distinguishing between Restoration and Enhancement in Neuropharmacology, Virtual Mentor 12(11): 885-888 (2010).

Nadler, R, Reiner PB, A call for data to inform discussion on cognitive enhancement. BioSocieties 5(4):481-482 (2010).

neuroessentialism and modern society

Neuroessentialism is the position that, for all intents and purposes, we are our brains. It is not so much that we are not also our genes, our bodies, members of social groups, and so on, but rather that when we conceive of ourselves, when we think of who we are as beings interacting in the world, the we that we think of primarily resides in our brains. The goals of this research program are to investigate the ways in which the rise of neuroessentialism might alter the mores of society.

One area in which neuroessentialist thinking is already making headway is in the field of legal jurisprudence, where the consideration of both intent and knowledge are key factors in consideration of culpability for one’s actions, both of which are well recognized as attributions of mental phenomena. Such considerations become prominent when evaluating retributive versus consequentialist theories of punishment. In order to advance the field, we are developing a new scale to measure retributive attitudes towards punishment, and will compare mens rea attributions of individuals who score high and low on this retributivist measure.

Understanding how decision making occurs in the brain has implications for our conception of a key issue in ethical discourse - autonomy. We have argued that the neuroscience of decision making informs this discourse in important ways, and that distinguishing between 1st order and 2nd order desires clarifies our understanding of the nature of autonomous decision making. We are now extending this work to investigate whether people prefer that “nudges” - behavioural modifications that help people improve their decision making - affect their 1st order or 2nd order desires.

Neuroessentialist thinking may also have an impact upon stigma, a form of social distance towards people who differ from our preconceived cultural norms. Many of the phenotypes that evoke stigma are based upon differences in brains; the neuroessentialist hypothesis suggests that once people understand stigma in this manner, social distance will decrease. We are carrying out a set of studies which sensitize people to the neuroessentialist perspective and then measure the effects of this manipulation upon social distance.

Over the past decade, a substantial body of research has explored the relationship between mindfulness, a form of self-regulated attention, and modern views of the brain function. We suggest that mindfulness can be understood in part as a variant of neuroessentialism: the ability to control ones attention and the consequences of so doing are entirely consistent with the key precepts upon which neuroessentialism is based. In one set of experiments which bears upon this issue, we are investigating the hypothesis that individuals who are either more mindful or more neuroessentialist in their outlook are more likely to (a) make utilitarian judgments in response to moral dilemmas and (b) to be more consistent in their judgments across personal and impersonal dilemmas.

Selected publications:

Reiner PB, The rise of neuroessentialism. In: Oxford Handbook of Neuroethics, J. Illes & B. Sahakian, eds.  pp. 161-175 (2011).

Felsen G, Reiner PB. How the neuroscience of decision making informs our conception of autonomy, AJOB Neuroscience 2:3-14 (2011).

Felsen G, Whiteley L, Nadler R, Reiner PB. Neuroscience evidence should be incorporated into our ethical practices. American J Bioethics – Neuroscience 1(4):36-38 (2010).

Staff

Noah Castelo is a Research Intern at the Core, and is in his third year of study at the University of Toronto, majoring in psychology and philosophy. His research focuses on the effects  of mindfulness on moral decision making, a subproject in the larger effort to gauge the impact that an increasingly neuroscientific culture might have on the public's moral intuitions, including the implications that might have for criminal law and other domains of social life.

Contact me

Eugene Chong is a Research Intern at the Core. Eugene is currently in his third year in the Cognitive Systems program at UBC, pursuing a major in computational intelligence and design. Having joined the core in September 2010, Eugene works with Dr. Reiner’s group in assessing the public’s attitude towards pharmacological cognitive enhancers. Currently, his project with Dr. Reiner’s group focuses upon the concept of peer pressure, one of the four cardinal concerns regarding pharmacological cognitive enhancers. Some of Eugene’s interests lies in cognition and development; specifically, he is passionate about language acquisition in infants and intellectual disability in people. Eugene also has a key interest in artificial intelligence, such as natural language processing, knowledge representation and machine learning.

Praveena Manogaran is a Research Intern at the Core, having joined Dr. Reiner’s group in September 2010. Their project focuses on the public’s perception of cognitive enhancement, in particular how concepts of authenticity are framed in the cognitive enhancment debate. Praveena is a third year student at University of British Columbia pursuing a Bachelor’s of Science in Cognitive Systems: Cognition and Brain with a Minor in Biology. Her interests include functional neuroanatomy and the neurobiological bases of perception, consciousness, sensation, psychopathology, and memory. She also has a fascination for arachnids and the study of entomology. Her future goal is to attend graduate school to obtain her Ph. D. in Experimental Medicine.

Roland Nadler, B.A., is an R. Howard Webster Fellow and graduate student at the Core. Roland joined Dr. Reiner at the Core as a Fulbright scholarship finalist in September 2009 after completing his undergraduate studies at Harvard University, concentrating in Philosophy with a specialization in Mind, Brain, and Behaviour. Roland’s areas of neuroethical interest include the ethics of human enhancement, the intersection of cognitive science and jurisprudence, the role of empirical inquiry in ethics, the relationship between free will and responsibility, and moral psychology. His most visible project at the Core explores the attitudes of the general public regarding pharmacological cognitive enhancement: using methods inspired by experimental philosophy, he and Dr. Reiner aim to produce a body of data detailing folk intuitions about issues of safety, autonomy, peer pressure, and distributive justice as they relate to this topic. Roland is pursuing a Master of Arts degree in UBC's Interdisciplinary Studies Graduate Program; his MA thesis will examine the relationship between retributive punishment theory and consistent attribution of mens rea in courtroom settings.

Contact me

Chris Ng, has been a Research Intern at the Core for the past two summers. He is a 3rd year medical student in a 6-year B.Sc. (Hons) and MBChB integrated program between the University of St. Andrews and the University of Edinburgh. Mr. Ng joined the Core in June 2010 and, under the guidance of Dr. Peter Reiner,has been working on topics such as the medicalisation of normal cognitive decline and public attitudes towards modafinil use. He wishes to pursue neurology as a specialty in his medical career