Rights in the Mind

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

The moral boundaries of the mind are increasingly on the philosophical agenda. Novel neurotechnologies promise us (or threaten us with-) the ability to directly ‘read’ the contents of, or ‘write’ into, the mind. Advertisers are increasingly able to discover and modify our beliefs and desires using sophisticated algorithmic techniques. These new technologies raise old ethical problems – people have been interpreting, and influencing, each other, as long as there have been people. This class asks about the ethics and politics of this sort of mental traffic, in cases of high technology and low. We will be concerned in particular, to understand what rights – claims, powers, and liberties – we may have in our minds, as such. We will ask: do we have a right to mental integrity that is akin to (/identical with; /derived from) our right to bodily integrity? Do we have other mental rights in addition, or instead? Do we have a standing moral claim against any non-consensual mental influence, and if not, when is such influence wrongfully manipulative, rather than normal social intercourse? Ought we to have the power to determine who can infer what about us, and if so how do we square that right with the right of others to infer (read: think) as they please? Are there ways that liberty of thought might stand in tension with the legitimate interests of others, in how they are thought of? How, if at all, should these mental rights be realized in law, interpersonal morality, or other social practices?