Course materials

Slides

Slides will be posted here at the conclusion of each session

Week 1

August 31–September 4

Monday | What is neuroethics?

Day 1: What Is Neuroethics?

A 12-slide, approximately 30-minute lecture with on-click reveals and discussion prompts.

Download slide deckPPTX

Wednesday | The geography: touring the brain

Day 2: The Geography: Touring the Brain

A 14-slide lecture deck on brain anatomy, functional organization, and major circuits.

Download slide deckPPTX

Friday | The currency: neurons and neuromodulators

Day 3: The Currency: Neurons and Neuromodulators

A 16-slide lecture deck on neural signaling, synaptic transmission, and neuromodulation.

Download slide deckPPTX

Week 2

September 7–11

Wednesday | The instruments: measuring minds

Day 4: The Instruments: Measuring Minds

A 17-slide lecture deck on method, analysis, warrant, and the evidential limits of neuroscientific tools.

Download slide deck (no presenter notes)PPTX

Friday | September 11

Session 5: The Field and the Ethical Toolkit

Empirical claims, ethical arguments, and moral theories applied to a workplace enhancement case.

Download slide deckPPTX

Week 3

September 14–18

Wednesday | The moral brain

Session 7: How Do We Judge Right and Wrong?

An interactive lecture on Greene’s fMRI experiment and moral judgment, with a Moral Machine demonstration.

Open interactive lectureHTML

Week 4

September 21–25

Monday | Addiction, craving, and control

Session 8: Addiction, Craving, and Control

An interactive lecture introducing the addiction unit, with Pickard’s account, evidence about craving and control, and an animated experiment.

Open interactive lectureHTML

Wednesday | Addiction discussion

Session 9: Addiction Discussion

Discussion slides on control, the boundaries of addiction, responsibility, and competing approaches to explaining addiction.

Open discussion slidesHTML

Friday | Pickard II: responsibility without blame

Session 10: Responsibility Without Blame

An interactive lecture on values, responsibility, and blame, with discussion of agency, support, and the limits of care.

Open interactive lectureHTML

Week 5

September 28–October 2

Wednesday | September 30

Session 12: Models of Addiction

Arguments for and against the brain disease, social, and psychology-first models, with May’s account of addiction as a disorder.

Open presentationHTML Download presentationHTML

Week 6

October 5–9

Monday | October 5

Psychedelics I: Treatment, Insight, and Illusion

An interactive lecture combining the evidence for psychedelic therapy with the comforting delusion objection, with animated visual sequences and student discussion questions.

Open presentationHTML Download presentationHTML

Wednesday | October 7

Psychedelics II: Unbinding the Self

Letheby’s account of self-binding, lasting change, and naturalistic spirituality, with student questions on insight, authenticity, and the meaning of spirituality.

Open presentationHTML Download presentationHTML

Friday | October 9

Midterm Review: Writing an Exam Response

Writing tips and worked short and long responses, revealed one paragraph at a time with annotations explaining each paragraph’s role.

Open presentationHTML Download presentationHTML

Week 7

October 12–16

Wednesday | October 14

Consciousness I: The Real Problem of Consciousness

Mary’s room, the hard problem, and Seth’s real problem introduce questions about conscious experience, evidence, and realization, with captioned animations leading into animal and machine consciousness.

Open presentationHTML

Friday | October 16

Perception as Controlled Hallucination

Visual demonstrations introduce how sensory evidence and prior expectations shape perception, and distinguish neural models from claims about conscious experience.

Download slide deck (no presenter notes)PPTX

Week 8

October 19–23

Monday | October 19

The Constructed Self: Authorship, Reality, and Value

Bayesian inference and the neuroscience of embodied selfhood introduce two puzzles about whether a constructed self can be our own and whether its experiences can matter.

Download slide deck (no presenter notes)PPTX

Wednesday | October 21

Selfhood, Choice, and the Brain: Four Dilemmas

Four discussion slides on authorship, unchosen influences, identification and the brain, and the reality and value of a constructed self.

Download slide deck (no presenter notes)PPTX

Week 9

October 26–30

No slide deck posted yet

Week 10

November 2–6

No slide deck posted yet

Week 11

November 9–13

No slide deck posted yet

Week 12

November 16–20

No slide deck posted yet

Week 13

November 23–29

No slide deck posted yet

Week 14

November 30–December 4

No slide deck posted yet

Week 15

December 7–11

No slide deck posted yet