Freedom of Thought and Mental Integrity: The Moral Requirements for Any Neural Prosthesis

There are many kinds of neural prostheses available or being researched today. In mostcases they are intended to cure or improve the condition of patients affected by somecerebral deficiency. In other cases, their goal is to provide new means to maintainor improve an individual’s normal performance. In all these circumstances, one of thepossible risks is that of violating the privacy of brain contents (which partly coincide withmental contents) or of depriving individuals of full control over their thoughts (mentalstates), as the latter are at least partly detectable by new prosthetic technologies. Giventhe (ethical) premise that the absolute privacy and integrity of the most relevant part ofone’s brain data is (one of) the most valuable and inviolable human right(s), I argue thata (technical) principle should guide the design and regulation of new neural prostheses.The premise is justified by the fact that whatever the coercion, the threat or the violenceundergone, the person can generally preserve a “private repository” of thought in whichto defend her convictions and identity, her dignity, and autonomy. Without it, the personmay end up in a state of complete subjection to other individuals. The following functionalprinciple is that neural prostheses should be technically designed and built so as toprevent such outcomes. They should: (a) incorporate systems that can find and signalthe unauthorized detection, alteration, and diffusion of brain data and brain functioning;(b) be able to stop any unauthorized detection, alteration, and diffusion of brain data.This should not only regard individual devices, but act as a general (technical) operatingprinciple shared by all interconnected systems that deal with decoding brain activity andbrain functioning.