In: Jens Clausen and Neil Levy, eds., Handbook of Neuroethics (Dordrecht: Springer, 2015). Section History of Neuroscience and Neuroethics, ed. Frank W. Stahnisch (ch. 27). PLEASE REFER TO AND QUOTE EXCLUSIVELY FROM THE PUBLISHED VERSION. Fernando Vidal ICREA (Catalan Institution for Research and Advanced Studies) fernando.vidal@icrea.cat Historical and Ethical Perspectives of Modern Neuroimaging Abstract: Both in its development and in the definition of its tasks, neuroethics has been intimately connected to neuroimaging, especially to the widespread application of functional brain imaging technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Neuroimaging itself, in particular its uses, interpretation, communication, media presence, and public understanding, has been one of neuroethics’ primordial subjects. Moreover, key neuroethical issues, such as brain privacy or the conceptualization of blame, responsibility, and in general human personhood, have largely gained from neuroimaging the form under which neuroethics deals with them. The use of neuroimaging techniques to investigate phenomena usually associated with research in the humanities and human sciences brought those phenomena into the orbit of neurobiological explanation. Neuroethics emerged in the context of such technology-driven intellectual and professional developments. Thus, more than an important stimulus for the development of neuroethics or a particular source of neuroethical challenges, the spread of functional neuroimaging can be considered as a condition of possibility of the field. In return, neuroethics supports the claim that the neurosciences, in particular by way of functional neuroimaging, will revolutionize “traditional” ways of understanding the human. To the extent that such a claim is debatable, neuroethics might benefit from examining its special relationship to neuroimaging. Introduction Unheard of in the 1990s, neuroethics required just a few years in the early 2000s to gain autonomy from bioethics, professionalize itself, and create networks, platforms, societies, journals, institutes, teaching, and research programs (Hoyer 2010; Conrad and De Vries 2012). Its main explicit goal is to examine and anticipate the ethical, social, and legal consequences of neuroscientific knowledge and its applications as well as to contribute to the ethics of neuroscience. In its development, history, and self-definition, neuroethics has been inherently connected to neuroimaging, especially to the increasingly widespread employment of functional brain imaging technologies such as positron emission tomography (PET) and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). On the one hand, neuroimaging itself, as well as its interpretation, communication, media presence, and public understanding, has been one of neuroethics’ primordial subjects. On the other hand, key neuroethical issues, such as “brain privacy,” or the conceptualization of blame, responsibility, and in general human personhood, have gained from neuroimaging the form under which neuroethics deals with them. The use of neuroimaging techniques to investigate phenomena usually associated with research in the humanities and human sciences brought