The case of opioids addiction is highly illustrative in this respect.
Notwithstanding the several scientific (e.g., from neuroscience to medicine) and social analyses of addiction that have been produced in recent years, the ethical discussion seems to be more limited and mainly focused on normative and practical issues, like the regulatory and practical questions related to the off-label abuse of opioid medication.
An ethical analysis of the factors leading to addictive behaviors and, specifically, of the responsibility for such behaviors seems lacking.
A recently published paper - co-authored by Michele Farisco & Kathinka Evers from the Human Brain Project's Ethics and Society sub-project, and eminent French Neuroscientist Jean-Pierre Changeux who works with the Human Brain Project's "Modelling Drug Discovery" co-design project - aims to contribute to this kind of ethical analysis using neuroscientific data about processing in the brain. In particular, the authors focus on the role of external influences on unaware processing and its driving role in addictive behavior.