Peggy DesAutels

Sex differences and neuroethics

Discussions in neuroethics to date have ignored an ever-increasing neuroscientific lilterature on sex differences in brains. If, indeed, there are significant differences in the brains of men versus women and in the brains of boys versus girls, the ethical and social implications loom very large. I argue that recent neuroscientific findings on sex-based brain differences have significant implications for theories of morality and for our understandings of the neuroscience of moral cognition and behavior.

Resisting Organizational Power

Normative ethical theory should provide us with guidance for how to live moral lives in a world filled with inequity and abuse of power. In this essay, I address ways that features of resisting organizational power do and do not overlap with features of resisting oppression more generally. I examine the potential for moral damage to individuals who resist organizational power, and argue that the traits necessary for successful whistleblowing are similar to what Lisa Tessman refers to as ‘burdened virtues’—they are necessary to successfully resisting organizational power, but ‘costly to the selves who bear them.’ I conclude by offering a preliminary sketch of the traits of a virtuous resister.

Two types of theories: The impact on Churchland's “perceptual plasticity”

Abstract In this paper I argue that because Churchland does not adequately address the distinction between high‐level cognitive theories and low‐level embodied theories, Churchlands claims for theory‐laden perception lose their epistemological significance. I propose that Churchland and others debating the theory‐ladenness of perception should distinguish carefully between two main ways in which perception is plastic: through modifying our high‐level theories directly and through modifying our low‐level theories using training experiences. This will require them to attend to two very different types of constraints on the modification of our perceptions.