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Open Access 01-03-2021 | Scientific Contribution

Resilience beyond reductionism: ethical and social dimensions of an emerging concept in the neurosciences

Authors: Nikolai Münch, Hamideh Mahdiani, Klaus Lieb, Norbert W. Paul

Published in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy | Issue 1/2021

Abstract

Since a number of years, popular and scientific interest in resilience is rapidly increasing. More recently, also neuroscientific research in resilience and the associated neurobiological findings is gaining more attention. Some of these neuroscientific findings might open up new measures to foster personal resilience, ranging from magnetic stimulation to pharmaceutical interventions and awareness-based techniques. Therefore, bioethics should also take a closer look at resilience and resilience research, which are today philosophically under-theorized. In this paper, we analyze different conceptualizations of resilience and argue that especially one-sided understandings of resilience which dismiss social and cultural contexts of personal resilience do pose social and ethical problems. On a social level such unbalanced views on resilience could hide and thereby stabilize structural social injustices, and on an individual level it might even lead to an aggravation of stress-related mental health problems by overexerting the individual. Furthermore, some forms of fostering resilience could be a latent form of human enhancement and trigger similar criticisms.

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Title: Resilience beyond reductionism: ethical and social dimensions of an emerging concept in the neurosciences
Authors: Nikolai Münch
Hamideh Mahdiani
Klaus Lieb
Norbert W. Paul
Publication date: 01-03-2021
Publisher: Springer Netherlands
Published in: Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy / Issue 1/2021
Print ISSN: 1386-7423
Electronic ISSN: 1572-8633
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11019-020-09981-0

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Resilience beyond reductionism: ethical and social dimensions of an emerging concept in the neurosciences

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