International institutions such as UNESCO are deliberating on a new standard setting instrument for neurotechnologies. This will likely lead to the adoption of a soft law document which will be the first global document specifically tailored to neurotechnologies, setting the tone for further international or domestic regulations. While some stakeholders have been consulted, these developments have so far evaded the broader attention of the neuroscience, neurotech, and neuroethics communities. To initiate a broader debate, this target article puts to discussion twenty-five (...) considerations and desiderata for recognition by a future instrument. They are formulated at different levels of abstraction, from the big picture to technical details, seek to widen the perspective of preparatory reports and transcend the narrow debate about “neurorights” which overshadows many richer and more relevant aspects. These desiderata are not an exhaustive enumeration but a starting point for discussions about what deserves and what requires protection by an international instrument. (shrink)

This paper analyses recent calls for so called “neurorights”, suggested novel human rights whose adoption is allegedly required because of advances in neuroscience, exemplified by a proposal of the Neurorights Initiative. Advances in neuroscience and technology are indeed impressive and pose a range of challenges for the law, and some novel applications give grounds for human rights concerns. But whether addressing these concerns requires adopting novel human rights, and whether the proposed neurorights are suitable candidates, are a different matter. This (...) paper argues that the proposed rights, as individuals and a class, should not be adopted and lobbying on their behalf should stop. The proposal tends to promote rights inflationism, is tainted by neuroexceptionalism and neuroessentialism, and lacks grounding in relevant scholarship. None of the proposed individual rights passes quality criteria debated in the field. While understandable from a moral perspective, the proposal is fundamentally flawed from a legal perspective. Rather than conjuring up novel human rights, existing rights should be further developed in face of changing societal circumstances and technological possibilities. (shrink)

There is concern that the use of neuroenhancements to alter character traits undermines consumer's authenticity. But the meaning, scope and value of authenticity remain vague. However, the majority of contemporary autonomy accounts ground individual autonomy on a notion of authenticity. So if neuroenhancements diminish an agent's authenticity, they may undermine his autonomy. This paper clarifies the relation between autonomy, authenticity and possible threats by neuroenhancements. We present six neuroenhancement scenarios and analyse how autonomy accounts evaluate them. Some cases are considered (...) differently by criminal courts; we demonstrate where academic autonomy theories and legal reasoning diverge and ascertain whether courts should reconsider their concept of autonomy. We argue that authenticity is not an appropriate condition for autonomy and that new enhancement technologies pose no unique threats to personal autonomy. (shrink)

This paper explores and ultimately affirms the surprising claim that artificial intelligence (AI) can become part of the person, in a robust sense, and examines three ethical and legal implications. The argument is based on a rich, legally inspired conception of persons as free and independent rightholders and objects of heightened protection, but it is construed so broadly that it should also apply to mainstream philosophical conceptions of personhood. The claim is exemplified by a specific technology, devices that connect human (...) brains with computers and operate by AI-algorithms. Under philosophically reasonable and empirically realistic conditions, these devices and the AI running them become parts of the person, in the same way as arms, hearts, or mental capacities are. This transformation shall be called empersonification. It has normative and especially legal consequences because people have broader and stronger duties regarding other persons (and parts of them) than regarding things. Three consequences with practical implications are: (i) AI-devices cease to exist as independent legal entities and come to enjoy the special legal protection of persons; (ii) therefore, third parties such as manufacturers or authors of software lose (intellectual) property rights in device and software; (iii) persons become responsible for the outputs of the empersonified AI-devices to the same degree that they are for desires or intentions arising from the depths of their unconscious. More generally, empersonification marks a new step in the long history of human–machine interaction that deserves critical ethical reflection and calls for a stronger value-aligned development of these technologies. (shrink)

Freedom of thought is a fundamental human right, enshrined in many human rights treaties. It might very well be the only human right without any practical application. The paper reconstructs scope and meaning of this forgotten right and proposes four principles for its interpretation. In the age of neuroscientific insights and interventions into mind and brain that afford to alter thoughts, the time for the law to define freedom of thought in a way that lives up to its theoretical significance (...) has come. (shrink)

The world we live in is unjust. Preventable deprivation and suffering shape the lives of many people, while others enjoy advantages and privileges aplenty. Cosmopolitan responsibility addresses the moral responsibilities of privileged individuals to take action in the face of global structural injustice. Individuals are called upon to complement institutional efforts to respond to global challenges, such as climate change, unfair global trade, or world poverty. Committed to an ideal of relational equality among all human beings, the book discusses the (...) impact of individual action, the challenge of special obligations, and the possibility of moral overdemandingness in order to lay the ground for an action-guiding ethos of cosmopolitan responsibility. This thought-provoking book will be of interest to any reflective reader concerned about justice and responsibilities in a globalised world. Jan-Christoph Heilinger is a moral and political philosopher. He teaches at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität, Munich, Germany, and at Ecole normale supérieure, Port-au-Prince, Haiti. (shrink)

This paper explores and ultimately affirms the surprising claim that artificial intelligence (AI) can become part of the person, in a robust sense, and examines three ethical and legal implications. The argument is based on a rich, legally inspired conception of persons as free and independent rightholders and objects of heightened protection, but it is construed so broadly that it should also apply to mainstream philosophical conceptions of personhood. The claim is exemplified by a specific technology, devices that connect human (...) brains with computers and operate by AI-algorithms. Under philosophically reasonable and empirically realistic conditions, these devices and the AI running them become parts of the person, in the same way as arms, hearts, or mental capacities are. This transformation shall be called empersonification. It has normative and especially legal consequences because people have broader and stronger duties regarding other persons (and parts of them) than regarding things. Three consequences with practical implications are: (i) AI-devices cease to exist as independent legal entities and come to enjoy the special legal protection of persons; (ii) therefore, third parties such as manufacturers or authors of software lose (intellectual) property rights in device and software; (iii) persons become responsible for the outputs of the empersonified AI-devices to the same degree that they are for desires or intentions arising from the depths of their unconscious. More generally, empersonification marks a new step in the long history of human–machine interaction that deserves critical ethical reflection and calls for a stronger value-aligned development of these technologies. (shrink)

The paper presents an ethical analysis and constructive critique of the current practice of AI ethics. It identifies conceptual substantive and procedural challenges and it outlines strategies to address them. The strategies include countering the hype and understanding AI as ubiquitous infrastructure including neglected issues of ethics and justice such as structural background injustices into the scope of AI ethics and making the procedures and fora of AI ethics more inclusive and better informed with regard to philosophical ethics. These measures (...) integrate the perspective of AI justice into AI ethics, strengthening its capacity to provide comprehensive normative orientation and guidance for the development and use of AI that actually improves human lives and living together. (shrink)

There is unanimous agreement that Nāgārjuna (ca 150–250 AD) is the most important Buddhist philosopher after the historical Buddha himself and one of the most original and influential thinkers in the history of Indian philosophy. His philosophy of the “middle way” (madhyamaka) based around the central notion of “emptiness” (śūnyatā) influenced the Indian philosophical debate for a thousand years after his death; with the spread of Buddhism to Tibet, China, Japan and other Asian countries the writings of Nāgārjuna became an (...) indispensable point of reference for their own philosophical inquiries. A specific reading of Nāgārjuna's thought, called Prāsaṅgika-Madhyamaka, became the official philosophical position of Tibetan Buddhism which regards it as the pinnacle of philosophical sophistication up to the present day. (shrink)

The paper critically engages with some of the normative arguments in Julian Savulescu and Ingmar Persson’s book Unfit for the Future. In particular, it scrutinizes the authors’ argument in denial of a moral right to privacy as well as their political proposal to alter humankind’s moral psychology in order to avert climate change, terrorism and to redress global injustice.

The neurosciences not only challenge assumptions about the mind’s place in the natural world but also urge us to reconsider its role in the normative world. Based on mind-brain dualism, the law affords only one-sided protection: it systematically protects bodies and brains, but only fragmentarily minds and mental states. The fundamental question, in what ways people may legitimately change mental states of others, is largely unexplored in legal thinking. With novel technologies to both intervene into minds and detect mental activity, (...) the law should, we suggest, introduce stand alone protection for the inner sphere of persons. We shall address some metaphysical questions concerning physical and mental harm and demonstrate gaps in current doctrines, especially in regard to manipulative interferences with decision-making processes. We then outline some reasons for the law to recognize a human right to mental liberty and propose elements of a novel criminal offence proscribing severe interventions into other minds. (shrink)

Ideas about freedom and related concepts like autonomy and self-determination play a prominent role in the moral debate about human enhancement interventions. However, there is not a single understanding of freedom available, and arguments referring to freedom are simultaneously used to argue both for and against enhancement interventions. This gives rise to misunderstandings and polemical arguments. The paper attempts to disentangle the different distinguishable concepts, classifies them and shows how they relate to one another in order to allow for a (...) more structured and clearer debate. It concludes in identifying the individual underpinnings and the social conditions of choice and decision-making as particularly salient dimensions of freedom in the ethical debate about human enhancement. (shrink)

ABSTRACT Ernst Fraenkel’s seminal study about Nazi law, in which he described the co-existence of a ‘normative state’ and a ‘prerogative state’ as principles of government, is to be rediscovered in the new age of the prerogative. Through a critical reading of The Dual State and other important texts by Fraenkel, this article seeks to contribute to the contemporary debate on regime types and governmental power in three regards: first, by clarifying Fraenkel’s concept of and perspective on law; second, by (...) discussing the methodological demands for the beneficial application of the dual state concept; and, third, by showing the usefulness of such an application, even beyond the field of authoritarian states in the narrower sense. Law-eroding prerogative developments cannot only be witnessed in hybrid regimes, but also in democratic states, which resort to reflections and practices of an ‘enemy criminal law’, and in the European Union’s recent crisis politics. (shrink)

Advances in biotechnology have enabled interventions in the human organism that promise to increase physical and intellectual perform over the 'normal' or 'natural' boundary, as well as make possible targeted changes in human experience. The author investigates ethical debates surrounding these issues with a particular focus on arguments that employ a normative concept of a person in order to establish that particular interventions are permissible or impermissible. He develops an integrated model that 'maps' of the concept of a human being, (...) thereby bringing the normative elements of the concept to the fore. Nevertheless, with a view to issues of risk and justice, the author argues that anthropological arguments are only one elements of a comprehensive ethics of enhancement. (shrink)

People can be treated unjustly with respect to the level of credibility others accord to their testimony. This is the core idea of the philosophical idea of epistemic justice. It should be of utmost interest to criminal law which extensively deals with normative issues of evidence and testimony. It may reconstruct some of the long-standing criticisms of criminal law regarding credibility assessments and the treatment of witnesses, especially in sexual assault cases. However, philosophical discussions often overlook the intricate complexities of (...) real procedural law and its underlying considerations. In its present form, the philosophical notion of epistemic injustice provides limited insights into legal discourse; it necessitates translation and adaptation. This study contributes to this endeavor by examining the contentious issue of testimony from witnesses who have undergone trauma-focused psychotherapy. Since the 1980s, courts worldwide were troubled with cases of false accusations based on false memories generated by suggestive therapeutic interventions. As a result, such post-therapy testimonies are discounted in one way or another in many jurisdictions. However, courts are still confronted with such testimonies, and the modi vivendi legal systems have established to deal with them continue to give rise to concerns about unjust treatment of witnesses. The question is thus whether legal rules or established practices of evaluating testimony based on memories which resurfaced after psychotherapy are epistemically and legally just. The paper presents seven ways in which courts may assess such testimonies and examines them in light of epistemic and procedural justice. Some of them prima facie constitute a form of epistemic injustice because they discount testimonies to an unwarranted degree. But these injustices might be justified by overriding principles favoring defendants. Nonetheless, the idea of epistemic justice, more broadly understood, inspires two principles that may serve as a foundation for a future conception of epistemic justice adapted to the law. (shrink)

"The overall aim of this book is to understand the character of moral progress, so that making moral progress may become more systematic and secure, less chancy and less bloody. Drawing on three historical examples - the abolition of chattel slavery, the expansion of opportunities for women, and the increasing acceptance of same-sex love - it asks how those changes were brought about, and seeks a methodology for streamlining the kinds of developments that occurred. Moral progress is conceived as pragmatic (...) progress, progress from rather than progress to, achieved by overcoming the problems and limits of the current situation. Two kinds of problems are distinguished: problems of exclusion, found when the complaints of some people are ignored; and problems of false consciousness, present when the oppressed adopt judgments from the ambient society and do not protest their condition. The proposed methodology advocates procedures for listening to voiced complaints and for systematically reviewing the way in which particular self-conceptions, ideals and identities are taken to be appropriate for various groups of people. Through outlining a picture of moral practice, at both the individual and the societal levels, the book seeks to orient moral philosophy away from metaethical questions of realism and towards moral methodology"--. (shrink)

The relationship between anthropology as the study of human beings and ethics as the study of what humans ought to do is close and multifaceted. The authors address the following questions: Are moral norms grounded in human nature or are they independent of it? Does ethics take into account human weaknesses or is morality absolute? If people change, do the requirements of morality change as well?

I join Gerben Meynen’s call for an ethical assessment of mind-reading technology by enlarging on four points he raises. First, I suggest distinguishing between neural and mental data, apprehending...

Mit dem Abschluss des Humangenomprojekts und den Fortschritten der Lebenswissenschaften stellt sich die Frage nach dem Selbstverstandnis des Menschen in geradezu dramatischer Weise. DAs neu gewonnene Wissen uber den Menschen muss analysiert, aufgearbeitet und bewertet werden. NIcht nur in den Lebens-, sondern auch in den Kulturwissenschaften stellt sich daher die Frage nach dem Selbstverstandnis des Menschen, das unsere Handlungen und Bewertungen sowie unsere Orientierung in der Welt pragt. DIe Forschenden stehen hierbei jedoch vor der Herausforderung, dass vertraute Intuitionen fragwurdig geworden (...) sind, feststehende Terminologien nicht zur Verfugung stehen und die neuen Erkenntnisse vielleicht grundlegend neue Antworten verlangen. DIe Buchreihe Humanprojekt nimmt diese Herausforderung an. SIe schafft eine Plattform, um einen forschungsrelevanten, dabei aber auch offentlich wirksamen Dialog der Natur-, Sozial- und Geisteswissenschaften uber die vielfaltigen Dimensionen der Frage nach dem Menschen zu fuhren. MOnographien und thematisch fokussierte Sammelbande, verfasst von ausgewiesenen Forscherinnen und Forschern, behandeln umfassend einzelne Elemente einer aktuellen Anthropologie. EIn systematischer uberblick und vielfaltige interdisziplinare Verknupfungen auf dem aktuellsten Stand der Forschung weisen die Bande als Referenzwerke zum jeweiligen Thema aus. AKtuelle Referenzwerke zur Anthropologie Analyse und Bewertung neuester Entwicklungen in den Lebenswissenschaften Erstklassige WissenschaftlerInnen Interdisziplinare Kompetenz Klare Darlegung aller verwendeten Begriffe: ideale Werke fur interessierte Laien Reihenherausgeber: Detlev Ganten, Charité Universitatsmedizin Berlin Volker Gerhardt, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin Jan-Christoph Heilinger, Universitat Zurich Julian Nida-Rumelin, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen. (shrink)

The paper discusses the role of anthropological arguments in contemporary ethics as exemplified in the current debate about biotechnological human enhancement interventions. Anthropological arguments refer to a normative conception of what it means to be a human being and are highly contested in contemporary moral philosophy. Most often they are promoted to constrain the ethically acceptable use of enhancement technologies. I argue that anthropological arguments can play a fundamental and important role in assessing the moral qualities of enhancement interventions, but (...) only if their normative justification and their specific content are properly determined. I offer an account how to do so, based on the contractualist and pragmatist ideal that all those who are affected by a decision of normative relevance should be included in what I call a “quasi-democratic deliberative process”. However, given that they stand in need of wide agreement, anthropological arguments resulting from such a process will be be rather minimal in content. In the exemplary debate about human enhancements they hence turn out to be widely – though not fully – permissive and unable to justify a restrictive stance towards enhancement interventions. (shrink)

Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.

Normen beeinflussen die Interaktion von Menschen miteinander und den Umgang von Menschen mit ihrer Umwelt. Was aber ist Normativität? Muss sie unabhängig von Menschen sein, um objektiv sein zu können? Oder entsteht sie erst in Abhängigkeit von Menschen, die sie formulieren oder nach ihr handeln, und ist deshalb nicht objektiv? Oder ist dieser Gegensatz grundsätzlich verfehlt und es bedarf eines anderen Ansatzes, um die Rolle von Normativität in der lebensweltlichen Verständigungspraxis angemessen zu bestimmen? Die Beiträge in vorliegendem Band widmen sich (...) diesem Problemkomplex unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Bereiche Moral und Wissenschaft. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting countries across the globe. Only a globally coordinated response, however, will enable the containment of the virus. Responding to a request from policy makers for ethics input for a global resource pledging event as a starting point, this paper outlines normative and procedural principles to inform a coordinated global coronavirus response. Highlighting global connections and specific vulnerabilities from the pandemic, and proposing standards for reasonable and accountable decision-making, the ambition of the paper is two-fold: to (...) raise awareness for the justice dimensions in the global response, and to argue for moving health from the periphery to the centre of philosophical debates about social and global justice. (shrink)