Minding rights: Mapping ethical and legal foundations of 'neurorights'

TL;DR

This paper explores the ethical and legal foundations of 'neurorights' related to neurotechnology, aiming to establish a clear conceptual framework to support global policy and legal discussions.

Contribution

It provides a multidisciplinary analysis to clarify and unify the conceptual, ethical, and legal understanding of 'neurorights' for policy development.

Findings

Identifies key ethical and legal issues in neurorights

Proposes a minimal conceptual framework for neurorights

Facilitates international policy discussions on neuroprivacy

Abstract

The rise of neurotechnologies, especially in combination with AI-based methods for brain data analytics, has given rise to concerns around the protection of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty - often framed as 'neurorights' in ethical, legal and policy discussions. Several states are now looking at including 'neurorights' into their constitutional legal frameworks and international institutions and organizations, such as UNESCO and the Council of Europe, are taking an active interest in developing international policy and governance guidelines on this issue. However, in many discussions of 'neurorights' the philosophical assumptions, ethical frames of reference and legal interpretation are either not made explicit or are in conflict with each other. The aim of this multidisciplinary work here is to provide conceptual, ethical and legal foundations that allow for facilitating a common minimalist conceptual understanding of mental privacy, mental integrity and cognitive liberty to facilitate scholarly, legal and policy discussions.