INTRODUCTION

The extraordinary increase in scientific knowledge achieved in the past century has generated numerous challenges for ethics. As a result, the field of bioethics has expanded, with an increased emphasis on a need for scientific advances to be accompanied by an examination of the humanistic implications of biomedical research.

In this regard, the intersection of ethics and neurogenetics is exceptionally significant because it connects the tensions found in discussions regarding brain–mind distinctions with the difficulties encountered in delineating mental health. At this intersection, epistemological issues arise as researchers and health care professionals attempt to relate human experiences – such as pain, suffering, illness, conscience, or even the awareness of self-existence – to physical correlates – such as genetic sequence variations and protein deposits – and vice versa. Hence, this intersection of ethics and neurogenetics involves a combination of issues that cannot be adequately interpreted, understood, or addressed from any single vantage point.

To explicate the dynamics of this intersection of ethics and neurogenetics, this chapter will focus on certain specific areas of neurogenetics – behavioral genetics, pharmacogenomics, and genetic testing – in order to reveal how scientific understanding and its accompanying assumptions can better facilitate the ethical decisionmaking process. Particular attention will be given to the problematic effects and consequences a reductionistic scientific framework can have at this intersection of neurogenetics and ethics, and to how a more integrative approach, such as an emergentistic framework, can be used to address these issues more completely.