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“Fácilis descensus Averni” Mind, Brain, Education, and Ethics: Highway to Hell, Stairway to Heaven, or Passing Dead End? *
Author(s) -
Chiesa Bruno della
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
mind, brain, and education
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.624
H-Index - 35
eISSN - 1751-228X
pISSN - 1751-2271
DOI - 10.1111/j.1751-228x.2010.01083.x
Subject(s) - heaven , nature versus nurture , politics , ideology , sociology , environmental ethics , epistemology , philosophy , law , political science , theology , anthropology
Are human beings born unequal when it comes to ethics? Or are ethical standards acquired? Or both nature and nurture? Neuroscience is on its way to discovering biological underpinnings of ethics in our brains. Whatever the upcoming findings on this front will be, our philosophical, political, and educational views, and even the way we look at ourselves as a species, could soon be radically challenged, if not altered. AENEIS, the special section of this journal dedicated to Educational Neuroscience and Ethics, seeks to shed light on the crucial and sometimes frightening questions and answers we are to be confronted with. Starting with Charles Lang (“Science, Education, and the Ideology of ‘How”’) and Zachary Stein (“On the Difference Between Designing Children and Raising Them: Ethics and the Use of Educationally Oriented Biotechnology”), we are embarking on a fascinating but dangerous learning journey. To navigate between Scylla and Charybdis, extreme caution is highly recommended.