Neuroethical considerations: cognitive liberty and converging technologies for improving human cognition

Explorations in Economic History, 2001

This paper discusses the emerging debate concerning the concept of Cogni-tive Liberty and its connection with human rights. Therefore, considering how recent developments of neurosciences are granting us an increasing ability to monitor and influence mental processes, this article aims to provide a clear definition of Cognitive Liberty understood as a necessary condition to all other freedoms that cannot be reduced to existing rights. In this regard, after presenting the most important positions on the issue, we introduce our point of view, according to which Cognitive Liberty allows us to lay the groundwork for building new neuro-related Human Rights.

When the manipulation of the human brain activity is a real possibility as it happens nowadays, a minimum of ethical values should be respected and incorporated into international and domestic Law. These rules shall aim to regulate the application of neurotechnologies and artificial intelligence to the human brain. No State which claims to be respectful of human rights can exercise the power to coercively manipulate the mental states of its population. In this article, we discuss cognitive freedom, a new right born out of neurotechnologies, which can also be understood as an update of human free will adapted to the 21st century. It is -as we will see- a multidimensional concept, difficult to define due to its complexity. In this article, we propose to consider cognitive freedom as an entirely new human right aimed at preserving the very essence of human nature. To validate our hypothesis, we use a qualitative methodology, aimed at establishing a consensual opinion of experts in the legal and scientific fields, together with the assistance of the main sources of the law, namely positive law, case law and doctrine.

BioLaw Journal - Rivista di BioDiritto, 2017

This paper discusses the emerging debate concerning the concept of Cogni-tive Liberty and its connection with human rights. Therefore, considering how recent developments of neurosciences are granting us an increasing ability to monitor and influence mental processes, this article aims to provide a clear definition of Cognitive Liberty understood as a necessary condition to all other freedoms that cannot be reduced to existing rights. In this regard, after presenting the most important positions on the issue, we introduce our point of view, according to which Cognitive Liberty allows us to lay the groundwork for building new neuro-related Human Rights.

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Studied since antiquity, the human brain has recently been the inspiration for an international neuroscientific entrepreneurship, the Human Brain Project in Europe and the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies initiative in the USA. Different in their approach, both regard the human brain as one of the greatest challenges of 21st century science and the organ that makes us “human”. However, it is mainly the necessity of developing new therapies that affect up to a billion people worldwide, which has propelled the search for extensive expertise and investment in neuroscience research. The debate on ethical and social policy issues as well as the research and medical strategies of such gigantic efforts has involved participants as diverse as neuroscientists, philosophers, scholars in ethics and law, politicians, and the general public, rendering modern neuroscience an interdisciplinary and conflictual endeavor. In fact, the brain is described as the biological underpinning of our thoughts, emotions, perceptions, free willed actions, and memories, features unique to our humanity. In this review, three neuroscientists and a philosopher from the neuroethics community provide their perspectives for an up-to-date survey of salient neuroethical issues, ie, modulation of free will and neuropharmaceuticals and neurotechnologies that enhance cognitive capacities, as well as an introduction of the reader to the controversial new discipline of neuroethics. Written for nonexperts in the field, it is intended to reflect on and to impart information helpful in understanding the challenges and the perils of modern neuroscience, whose tools are so powerful as to jeopardize what is uniquely “human” through willful mind manipulation. We conclude that, for any future effort to “recreate” the mind and, at the same time, keep what is uniquely ours, it will be necessary to reflect ethically and review carefully man’s past best efforts at self-understanding.

Fundamentum Petendi Law Journal Jakarta Indonesia, 2022

When the manipulation of the human brain activity is a real possibility as it happens nowadays, a minimum of ethical values should be respected and incorporated into international and domestic Law. These rules shall aim to regulate the application of neurotechnologies and artificial intelligence to the human brain. No State which claims to be respectful of human rights can exercise the power to coercively manipulate the mental states of its population. In this article, we discuss cognitive freedom, a new right born out of neurotechnologies, which can also be understood as an update of human free will adapted to the 21st century. It is-as we will see-a multidimensional concept, difficult to define due to its complexity. In this article, we propose to consider cognitive freedom as an entirely new human right aimed at preserving the very essence of human nature. To validate our hypothesis, we use a qualitative methodology, aimed at establishing a consensual opinion of experts in the legal and scientific fields, together with the assistance of the main sources of the law, namely positive law, case law and doctrine.

A great number of existing, emerging and hypothetical technologies offers the possibility of neuroenhancement of human beings, promising (or threatening) to drastically change the lives of citizens. Among them are so called „smart drugs” - psychopharmacological interventions that allegedly boost brain power, and „neuroprosthesis“ - electromagnetic interventions in the brain in the form of interface with computers or even artificial means of augmenting cognition, new brain stimulation technologies that combat pain and control mental focus, and even highly sophisticated neuroimplants with special sensory input or electro-mechanical output. The debate on enhancement in neuroethics, the field of applied ethics analyzing the social, legal and ethical challenges of these technologies, had been sidetracked to a metaphysical argument about human nature. Most arguments against enhancement tend to concentrate on the issue of authenticity or what it means to live according to human nature. The pro-enhancement arguments are broadly utilitarian, and furthered by the claim that human brains are no more than tools among other tools of cognition, and even that human beings are “natural born cyborgs”. The issue of distributive justice has been evoked on both sides, although without specific content to the conception of justice that should be applied. The questions of what implications does neuroenhancement have for individual and especially to political autonomy are so far rather left unanswered. This dissertation conducts an in-depth case by case analysis of existing and emerging cognitive neuroenhancement technologies while extending and applying Rawls' concept of autonomy and conception of distributive justice, in order to formulate a distinct approach in neuroethics that would be political and not metaphysical. The primary objective of this research is to contribute toward answering the question: What public policies would be legitimate and effective in the context of use of cognitive enhancement drugs and devices by healthy adults in a democratic society? More specifically, the dissertation extends and applies Rawls's principles of justice and autonomy by confronting their normative requirement with contemporary empirical findings that might challenge or even undermine them. Then, sufficiently updated Rawlsian notions of autonomy and justice are used in a case-by-case analysis of existing pharmaceutical (Modafinil, Methylphenidate and Amphetamines) cognitive enhancement technologies. In the case-by-case analysis, by drawing on empirical findings on safety and efficacy, long term effects and prevalence, arguments for and against the use of a given technology are discussed and a corresponding policy approaches and models analyzed. The appropriate approach (discourage use) and model (economic disincentives model) are specified and further analyzed in the context of existing legal regulation (including international treaties) of stimulant drugs. The principles, approach and model are then also applied in a case-by-case analysis of existing electro-magnetic (transcranial magnetic stimulation and transcranial direct current stimulation) cognitive enhancement technologies. The differences between the regulatory framework in stimulant drugs and devices are analyzed, along with currently available evidence on safety and efficacy and danger profiles, before tentative conclusions about policy are made. The analysis of particular cases is then tested against general objections to a Rawlsian framework, and more specific objections to the Rawsian idea of public reason. Finally, concrete objections to the policy proposals and conclusions in specific cases of existing pharmacological and electro-magnetic cognitive enhancement technologies are reviewed and refuted.

Online Journal of Health Ethics, 2019

The seemingly infinite possibilities of contemporary neuroscience span from the augmentation of memory, executive function, appetite, libido, sleep, and mood, to the maturation and development of emotional health and personality. These prospects hint at the capacity to alter neurocognitive conceptions of reality. They also mark the unavoidable inculcation of nuanced individual responses, perhaps radical, to these "tailormade" perceptions. Hence, there exists certain neuroethical, and even more generally, existential risks within this fascinating and expeditious enterprise. The primary question in the context of present-day neurotechnology is not what can be done, but what should be. To that end, this paper examines the concepts of memory, executive function, and emotional health and personality in the context of neurocognitive enhancement and posits the argument that neurocognitive enhancement can be justified as morally plausible in its potential to edify the caliber of overall cognition, and thus contribute to the ability to make pragmatically, robust moral decisions on the conditions that it (1) promotes general moral character, (2) compliments human nature, and (3) effects a deeper sense of individual and social identity.