Is Mental Privacy a Component of Personal Identity?

Frontiers in Human Neuroscience 15:773441 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

One of the most prominent ethical concerns regarding emerging neurotechnologies is mental privacy. This is the idea that we should have control over access to our neural data and to the information about our mental processes and states that can be obtained by analyzing it. A key issue is whether this information needs more stringent protection than other kinds of personal information. I will articulate and support the view, underlying recent regulatory frameworks, that mental privacy requires a special treatment because of its relation to relevant aspects of personal identity. It has been suggested that this approach could be supported by the idea that mental privacy constitutes a fundamental psychological dimension of privacy. The connection between this psychological view of privacy and identity can be traced back to Irwin Altman’s idea that privacy is an interpersonal boundary regulation process. However, it is not clear whether this notion of privacy can be associated with a conception of identity that is relevant in contemporary neuroethics. I will suggest that the narrative and relational approach to identity, a prominent view in recent ethical discussions of neurotechnology, lines up with key aspects of Altman’s proposal. I suggest that if mental privacy is an essential component of identity, the latter could be affected by technological mind-reading.

Other Versions

No versions found

Similar books and articles

Mental Privacy as the Basis of Relational Identity and Autonomy.Abel Wajnerman-Paz - 2024 - Revista de Humanidades de Valparaíso 26:205-221.
Brain Data in Context: Are New Rights the Way to Mental and Brain Privacy?Daniel Susser & Laura Y. Cabrera - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 15 (2):122-133.
Data, Metadata, Mental Data? Privacy and the Extended Mind.Spyridon Orestis Palermos - 2023 - American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience 14 (2):84-96.
The ontological interpretation of informational privacy.Luciano Floridi - 2005 - Ethics and Information Technology 7 (4):185–200.
Privacy by Design in Personal Health Monitoring.Anders Nordgren - 2015 - Health Care Analysis 23 (2):148-164.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-10-15

Downloads
316 (#77,567)

6 months
87 (#67,057)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Abel Wajnerman Paz
Pontifical Catholic University of Chile