Seeing the Forest for the Trees: The Importance of Unifying Ethical and Legal Considerations for Non-Validated Practice of Neurotherapies

Abstract

The work of Nagappan, Kalokairinou and Wexler (2021) on the ?Ethical and legal considerations of alternative neurotherapies? makes an important contribution to the task of unifying a relevant subgroup of neurotherapies under a common ethical and legal framework. They draw attention to the whole of ?alternative neurotherapies? rather than discussing them singularly, to take advantage of the ethical and legal considerations of existing scholarship on ?complementary and alternative medicine? (CAM), with the purpose of informing policy recommendations (Nagappan et al. 2021, 257). Unifying these neurotherapies allows us to ?see the forest for the trees.? Analogous to the unification of modern physics or biology that use the same scientific laws to explain and predict unconnected phenomena, such a framework, by connecting apparently different and disconnected particular actions to a type of actions and normative principles, allows us to deliberate on and justify our actions to ourselves and others.