Autonomy and justice in neuroethics of cognitive enhancement

AJOB Neuroscience, 2019

This is a pre-publication version. The final version is forthcoming in AJOB Neuroscience.] In Neuroethics at 15: The Current and Future Environment for Neuroethics, the authors identify three main themes that should shape the neuroethical debate for the coming years: 1) the rapid and continuous developments in new technologies; 2) the expanding global scale of the neuroscience landscape, which calls for global guidelines, and 3) the expanding public and private applications of neurotechnologies.

Hastings Center Report, 2015

International Journal of Technoethics, 2015

According to several recent studies, a big chunk of college students in North America and Europe uses so called ‘smart drugs’ to enhance their cognitive capacities aiming at improving their academic performance. With these practices, there comes a certain moral unease. This unease is shared by many, yet it is difficult to pinpoint and in need of justification. Other than simply pointing to the medical risks coming along with using non-prescribed medication, the salient moral question is whether these practices are troubling in and of themselves. In due consideration of empirical insights into the concrete effects of smart drugs on brain and behavior, our attempt is to articulate wherein this moral unease consists and to argue for why the authors believe cognitive enhancement to be morally objectionable. The authors will contend that the moral problem with these practices lies less in the end it seeks, than in the underlying human disposition it expresses and promotes. Some might ask, what is wrong with molding our cognitive capacities to achieve excellence, get a competitive edge, or, as the whim takes us? In all of these occasions, the usage of smart drugs serves a certain goal, a telos. The goal is, broadly speaking, this: outsmarting opponents in an arms race for limited resources and thereby yielding a competitive edge. In plain words: competition is valued higher than cooperation or solidarity. What is wrong with striving for this goal? The authors submit that the question whether people really want to live in a society that promotes the mentality ‘individual competition over societal cooperation’ deserves serious consideration. In developing their answer, the authors draw on an ‘Ethics of Constraint’ framework, arguing that widespread off-label use of smart drugs bears the risk of negative neural/behavioral consequences for the individual that might, in the long run, be accompanied by changing social value orientations for the worse.

Quaestio Iuris - Revista de la Faculdade de Direito - Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2022

The invasion of the rights to privacy and intimacy, a result of massiveness achieved by the new information and communication technologies, becomes today a greater threat with the possibility that third parties access our thoughts and manipulate our memory. Technology applied to neuroscience may make this possible in the near future. Although at present the legal regulation of the use of neurotechnologies seems unnecessary, the question becomes relevant when they are used to map and modify the activity of the human brain. The future possibilities of the use of neurotechnologies will affect not only our lifestyle, but the very nature of what we understand today as the human being. In this first article we present the intersections between neurotechnology and law, which generates a new field called Neuro-Law. Along the current legal disruption taking place, we describe the basic characteristics of the proposal to affirm entirely new human rights based on new technologies applied to Neuroscience.

2004

2021

Neuro rights, the new human rights The human mind has been a subject matter of study in psychology, law, science, philosophy and other disciplines. [i] By definition, its potential is power, abilities and capacities including perception, knowledge, sensation, memory, belief, imagination, emotion, mood, appetite, intention, and action.[ii] In terms of role, it creates and shapes societal morality, culture, peace and democracy. Today, a rapidly advancing science-technology-artificial intelligence (AI) landscape is able to reach into the inner realms of the human mind. Technology, particularly neurotechnology enables access to the human mind for research, treatment and other purposes. This enabling feature is now a growing concern. Lenka and Andorno write, while the body can easily be subject to domination and control by others, the mind, along with thoughts, beliefs and convictions, are to a large extent beyond external constraint. Yet, with advances in neural engineering, brain imaging and pervasive neurotechnology, the mind might no longer be such unassailable fortress… emerging neurotechnologies have the potential to allow access to at least some components of mental information.[iii]

An integrated and principled neuroethics offers ethical guidelines able to transcend conventional and medical reliance on normality standards. Elsewhere we have proposed four principles for wise guidance on human transformations. Principles like these are already urgently needed, as bio-and cyberenhancements are rapidly emerging. Context matters. Neither " treatments " nor " enhancements " are objectively identifi able apart from performance expectations, social contexts, and civic orders. Lessons learned from disability studies about enablement and inclusion suggest a fresh way to categorize modifi cations to the body and its performance. The term " enhancement " should be broken apart to permit recognition of enablements and augmentations, and kinds of radical augmentation for specialized performance. Augmentations affecting the self, self-worth, and self-identity of persons require heightened ethical scrutiny. Reversibility becomes the core problem, not the easy answer, as augmented persons may not cooperate with either decommissioning or displacement into unaccommodating societies. We conclude by indicating how our four principles of self-creativity, nonobsolescence, empowerment, and citizenship establish a neuroethics beyond normal that is better prepared for a future in which humans and their societies are going so far beyond normal.

Life Sciences, Society and Policy, 2017

Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. Such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. This paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. After analyzing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.

Social Communication

The classical distinction between the natural and the artificial is gradually losing its original sharpness. Biotechnology can be used not only for therapeutic purposes but also to enhance human cognitive, emotional, moral, or physical abilities. This article discusses three of the most important socio-ethical issues related to the impact of neuroenhancement on individuals and on society. It closely examines threats to the principle of autonomy in the case of two selected technologies for neuroenhancement: the Brain – Computer Interface and gene technologies applied to the enhancement of other beings. The article also discusses the influence of social pressure on autonomous decision-making by individuals and whether social pressure is a sufficient reason for not accepting neuroenhancement. Finally, within the context of many concerns about the widening of social inequality as the result of the spread of enhancement practices, this article examines whether such disparities can be avo...

Biolaw Journal, 2020

Several neurotechnological devices that are in use today can both collect signals from the brain electro activity and send impulses to the brain. Thus, it is possible to intervene on brain activity in order to modify it and to transform it into usable and reproducible signals. This new kind of man-machine connection is going to have a deep impact on legal categories. This paper focuses on the notion of mental integrity and the consequent changes within its semantic field. What provides the guiding thread is the current debate on personal identity and autonomy of Deep Brain Stimulation patients. The conclusion outlines the possible philosophical background of the issues at stake.

Kennedy Institute of Ethics Journal, 2008

The idea of enhancing our mental functions through medical means makes many people uncomfortable. People have a vague feeling that altering our brains tinkers with the core of our personalities and the core of ourselves. It changes who we are, and doing so seems wrong, even if the exact reasons for the unease are difficult to define. Many of the standard arguments against neuroenhancements-that they are unsafe, that they violate the distinction between therapy and enhancements, that they undermine equality, and that they will be used coercively-fail to show why the use of any such technologies is wrong in principle. Two other objections-the arguments that such changes undermine our integrity and that they prevent us from living authentic lives-will condemn only a few of the uses that are proposed. The result is that very few uses of these drugs are morally suspect and that most uses are morally permissible.

2016

Cap part d'aquesta publicació, incloent-hi el disseny de la coberta, no pot ser reproduïda, emmagatzenada, ni transmesa de cap manera, ni per cap mitjà (elèctric, químic, mecànic, òptic, de gravació o bé fotocòpia) sense autorització prèvia de la marca editorial.

Brain and Cognition, 2002

Emerging neurotechnologies, including psychopharmaceuticals, brain stimulation, implantable brain chips, transcranial magnetic stimulation, and brain imaging raise a number of ethical questions. One of the most contentious is the proper role of these technologies in improving or increasing mental and neurological traits and skills in those with no identifiable pathology. The ''enhancement'' debate centers around a number of concerns and philosophical approaches to the proper role of medicine, therapeutics, and desirable human qualities. Arguements for and against neurological enhancement are reviewed, and historical and social perspectives are offered.

2013

The debate about the ethical aspects surrounding the brain is growing these days and consequently the sciences directly related to it cov- ered by neurosciences. Neuroethics is a recent field linked to the intersection of bioethics and neuroscience, and its advances raise ethical questions. The aim of this article is to verify and to comment important aspects of neuro- ethics. It was accomplished to critically review the literature. Ethics applied to areas related to neurosciences needs criteria that will serve as reference to consider variables and judge circumstances; the recent advances in neu- roscience raise important ethical questions that need to be discussed and observed by Neuroethics; there is a need to define the boundaries between the use of technologies and therapies to treat an ill patient and usages only to improve the performance of normal healthy individuals. Recent progress on cognitive neuroscience brings important ethical, practical, technological, philosophical,...

Frontiers in Neuroscience