Thinking Ahead Too Much: Speculative Ethics and Implantable Brain Devices

Some argue neuroethicists have an obligation to preparefor and anticipate the future of invasive brain devices. Nobodycan deny that upcoming technologies will develop futuregenerations of implantable brain devices and, as such,these novel developments deserve our careful ethical attention.However, while thinking too far ahead raises the riskof articulating ethical prophecies, it also neglects currentand urgent ethical issues. Consequently, in both scenarios,thinking ahead too much may force us to buy into speculativeethics. The danger of speculative ethics is not only thatit fails to capture any practical issues, but also that it wastesour ethical resources. In the long term, we believe speculativeethics may negatively affect the authority of neuroethicsas a credible narrative within the scientific literature.