What's the case for "billion-dollar companies using neuroscience to manipulate the behavior of individuals is a moral and societal good"? Neuromarketing seems pretty straightforwardly evil to me...
Are you against marketing in general? What's different about these advanced techniques? I see technology applied to marketing as a natural consequence of business. You have a point that it's not necessarily in the best interest of society at large, but how would we go about regulating the messages businesses are allowed to communicate?
I've only seen such drugs ads in the US. Most other countries seem to realize that watching a 30 second ad is unlikely to make you more informed than a MD or PharmD.
It's not about being informed, it's - like all marketing - about being misinformed. And in this case, the intended effect is that the patient will pressure the doctor to prescribe them the drug they've seen on TV.
In most cases I might agree with you - but as a counterpoint I would posit a huge problem among the medical community: patient compliance with treatment. Sometimes health outcomes have nothing to do with the treatment itself, but rather the patient(s) are not likely to adhere strictly to the recommendations. [Source: my graduate school advisor was a health economist - but I'm sure there are studies out there to validate this.]
Something to keep in mind: not all drugs are bad. And even those that get a historical bad rap are ok in _moderation_ - some drugs are very helpful and necessary for certain conditions.
If drug ads and/or neuromarketing can improve patient outcomes by improving the likelihood that a patient complies with treatment, then is that all that bad?
Is it straightforwardly evil? What if the thing being marketed is good for you? Would a neuromarketing campaign designed to get people to exercise more or eat more vegetables be evil?
> What if the thing being marketed is good for you? Would a neuromarketing campaign designed to get people to exercise more or eat more vegetables be evil?
Then we could debate whether targeted assault at free will is in principle bad or not.
As it is, neuromarketing is not used for good. It's used to exploit people.
It's like asking if killing random strangers on the street is straightforwardly evil, because there's a remote possibility that they're all alien shapeshifters out to destroy our way of life.
