[Neuroethics as the neuroscience of ethics]

The neurosciences have developed at a stunningly fast rate. Key points accounting for this progression include the introduction of functional neuroimaging techniques and the boost resulting from the Decade of the Brain project. This expansion has also allowed new disciplines such as neuroethics to appear.

Those who have worked on neuroethics can be divided into three groups (neuroreductionists, neurosceptics and neurocritics), and each group has its own standpoint as regards what neuroethics is, with several scopes and limitations in their proposals.

Neuroethics is a discipline that, prior to the year 2002, was understood only as an ethics of neuroscience (a branch of bioethics). As of that date, however, it is also understood as a neuroscience of ethics (a new discipline). Neuroreductionism proposes that all ethical life has a basis in the brain that determines ethical actions; neuroscepticism holds that neuroscience cannot be considered a normative function; and neurocriticism considers that the neuroscientific advances cannot be ignored and must be taken into account in some way in order to draw up ethical theories.