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Cognitive Liberty or the International Human Right to Freedom of Thought

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Handbook of Neuroethics

Abstract

The aim of the chapter is to draw attention to a fundamental right that is neglected in the law but that is highly relevant for neuroethics: cognitive liberty or freedom of thought. Although an internationally accepted human right, it has not gained practical legal importance. However, any regulation of neurotechnologies has to be evaluated in its light. As the right is unfamiliar to policy makers and even to many lawyers and legal scholars, its historical development and the main arguments for its recognition are sketched. Furthermore, some suggestions for its interpretation, scope, and contours are forwarded and remaining open questions identified. According to international human rights law, the right is of absolute nature so that interferences cannot be justified for interests of the common good or paternalistic reasons. Whether this strict prohibition of intervening into other persons’ minds can and should be sustained even in light of putative pressing public interests and various neuroethical considerations is one of the novel questions neuroscience poses for the law.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For the history of psychosurgery and electrical brain stimulation, see Valenstein 1974; Delgado 1969.

  2. 2.

    For the history of freedom of thought up to the early twentieth century, see Bury 1952.

  3. 3.

    Art. 19 Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR); Art. 19-1 International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (CCPR).

  4. 4.

    Art. 18-1 CCRP; Art. 9-1 European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR); Art. 13 American Convention on Human Rights.

  5. 5.

    Cf. the General Comment No. 22 30.07.1993 by the UN Human Rights Committee.

  6. 6.

    This touches upon the problem of the interplay between international human rights and domestic law. Whether and to which extent human rights are enforceable on the domestic level differs from treaty to treaty and country to country. In some states, human rights treaties prevail over domestic law; in others, they have to be incorporated into domestic law through special legislation; in still others, domestic law has to be interpreted in light of international treaties.

  7. 7.

    Palko v. Connecticut 302 U.S. 319 (1937). Cf. Blitz (2010) and Boire (1999) for further references in US jurisprudence.

  8. 8.

    Vermeulen in van Dijk and van Hoof 2006, p. 752.

  9. 9.

    Scheinin in Eide and Swinehart 1992, pp. 264/266.

  10. 10.

    Jones v. Opelika, 316 U.S. 584 (1942).

  11. 11.

    Under the UDHR and the ICCPR, the right is even “non-derogable” in times of emergency.

  12. 12.

    Cf. The list of psychotropic substances under International Control by the International Narcotics Control Board (www.incb.org).

  13. 13.

    For a moral argument to that end, see Husak (1992).

  14. 14.

    Stanley v. Georgia – 394 U.S. 557 (1969).

  15. 15.

    Cf. the chapter on memory alterations and the law in this volume.

  16. 16.

    For example, pedophiliac thoughts as in the US case of Doe v. City of Lafayette, 377 F.3d 757 (2004).

  17. 17.

    Rene Cassin, quoted from Scheinin 1992.

  18. 18.

    Cf. the different version of the Parity Principle in Levy 2007.

  19. 19.

    A more detailed argument against the Parity Principle can be found in Bublitz/Merkel 2014.

  20. 20.

    Global Commission on Drug Policy 2011.

  21. 21.

    See the full case report in Synofzik et al. 2012.

  22. 22.

    This becomes self-evident if one imagines a person with identical characteristics bestowed upon her on natural ways. Then, others surely do not posses any claims over them. Prima facie the same must be true for electrically modulated mood.

  23. 23.

    Cf. the call for an ethics of consciousness by Metzinger 2009, Chap. 9.

  24. 24.

    Cf. the chapter on moral enhancement in this volume.

  25. 25.

    Cf. the paper by Shaw in this volume.

  26. 26.

    For a detailed argument why bioconservatives should embrace cognitive liberty, see Bublitz 2013.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Law, University of Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Christoph Bublitz

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  1. Christoph Bublitz
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Correspondence to Christoph Bublitz .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Ethics and History of Medicine, University of TĂĽbingen, TĂĽbingen, Germany

    Jens Clausen

  2. The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, University of Melbourne, Parkville, Australia

    Neil Levy

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Bublitz, C. (2015). Cognitive Liberty or the International Human Right to Freedom of Thought. In: Clausen, J., Levy, N. (eds) Handbook of Neuroethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_166

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_166

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