Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Ethics of Brain–Computer Interfaces for Enhancement Purposes

  • Reference work entry
  • First Online:
Handbook of Neuroethics

Abstract

This chapter outlines two key ethical issues associated with the possible development of brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) for enhancement purposes. Following a brief introduction to brain-computer interfaces, a scenario in which their use for enhancement purposes becomes commonplace is sketched. General ethical issues associated with the widespread adoption of brain-computer interfaces for enhancement are then introduced. The concept of privacy is presented and various issues surrounding this concept are discussed. BCIs are likely to create new challenges in relation to informational privacy and psychological privacy. These challenges are explored, particularly in relation to liberty, autonomy, personal identity, psychological well-being, and safety. It is recommended that the privacy of future BCI users is protected. Following this, the related concept of autonomy is introduced, and various issues surrounding this concept are examined. The manner in which BCIs are likely to impact autonomy is explored, with a particular focus on freedom, brain hacking, and the transfer of autonomy. Due to the moral significance of autonomy, it is recommended that restrictions are placed on the development and availability of certain types of BCIs.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 999.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 999.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Augmented reality refers to scenarios in which the real, physical world is overlaid with computer-generated imagery or information, accessible via a device such as a mobile phone or Google Glasses.

  2. 2.

    Indeed, virtual reality theorists have argued that the brain does not easily distinguish between the real and the virtual on a perceptual level (Blascovich and Bailenson 2011).

  3. 3.

    The categories of privacy mentioned above plausibly overlap, particularly where BCIs are concerned. For instance, someone using a BCI to “hack” a mind would obviously breach informational privacy by gaining information to which they have no right. This information might also concern intimate relations of that person with another, thus, breaching associational privacy. Finally, from a materialist perspective, hacking the mind, removing some information from the brain is breaching a person’s physical privacy.

  4. 4.

    Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) says: “No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks” (“The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” 1948).

  5. 5.

    However, questions might arise regarding the voluntariness of the choices to use a BCI in a world in which the social and economic systems of society are designed for use with BCIs in a similar manner to the necessity, in many parts of the world, of access to the Internet. A society in which BCIs are the norm may exert enough pressure on people to use them that the choice cannot be considered voluntary.

  6. 6.

    http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/

  7. 7.

    (see Morozov 2013)

  8. 8.

    Transferring authority over oneself might be attractive to members of religious cults or for erotic reasons, for instance.

References

  • Allen, A. (2011). Privacy and Medicine. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2011). Stansford, CA: Stansford University. Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/privacy-medicine/.

  • Anthony, S. (2012). Hackers backdoor the human brain, successfully extract sensitive data. ExtremeTech. Retrieved March 22, 2013, from http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/134682-hackers-backdoor-the-human-brain-successfully-extract-sensitive-data

  • Berger, T. W., Chapin, J. K., Gerhardt, G. A., McFarland, D. J., Principe, J. C., Soussou, W. V., Taylor, D. M., & Tresco, P. A. (2007). International assessment of research and development. In Brain-computer interfaces. Baltimore: World Technology Evaluation Center.

    Google Scholar 

  • Blascovich, J., & Bailenson, J. (2011). Infinite reality: Avatars, eternal Life, new worlds, and the dawn of the virtual revolution. New York: Harper Collins.

    Google Scholar 

  • Buss, S. (2008). Personal autonomy. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Fall 2008). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2008/entries/personal-autonomy/

  • Christman, J. (2011). Autonomy in moral and political philosophy. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), The Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy (Spring 2011). Retrieved from http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2011/entries/autonomy-moral/

  • Clausen, J. (2008). Moving minds: Ethical aspects of neural motor prostheses. Biotechnology Journal, 3(12), 1493–1501. doi:10.1002/biot.200800244.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Clausen, J. (2009). Man, machine and in between. Nature, 457(7233), 1080–1081. doi:10.1038/4571080a.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • École Polytechnique Fédérale De Lausanne. (2011). Nissan teams up with EPFL for futurist car interfaces. EPFL News Mediacom. Retrieved from http://actu.epfl.ch/news/nissan-teams-up-with-epfl-for-futurist-car-interfa/

  • Edlinger, G., Holzner, C., & Guger, C. (2011). A hybrid brain-computer interface for smart home control. In J. A. Jacko (Ed.), Human-computer interaction. Interaction techniques and environments (pp. 417–426). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-642-21605-3_46.

  • Floridi, L. (1999). Information ethics: On the philosophical foundation of computer ethics. Ethics and Information Technology, 1(1), 33–52. doi:10.1023/A:1010018611096.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Floridi, L. (2005). The Ontological interpretation of informational privacy. Ethics and Information Technology, 7(4), 185–200. doi:10.1007/s10676-006-0001-7.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Google. (2013). Google glass. Retrieved April 2, 2013, from http://www.google.com/glass/start/

  • Gordijn, B., & Buyx, A. M. (2010). Neural engineering. In Scientific and philosophical perspectives in neuroethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Griffin, J. (2008). On Human Rights. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Grübler, G. (2011). Beyond the responsibility gap. Discussion note on responsibility and liability in the use of brain-computer interfaces. AI and Society, 26(4), 377–382.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Haselager, P., Vlek, R., Hill, J., & Nijboer, F. (2009). A note on ethical aspects of BCI. Neural Networks, 22(9), 1352–1357. doi:10.1016/j.neunet.2009.06.046.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Holm, S., & Voo, T. C. (2011). Brain-machine interfaces and personal responsibility for action - maybe not as complicated after all. Studies in Ethics, Law, and Technology, 4(3). doi:10.2202/1941-6008.1153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Kant, I. (2005). The moral law: Groundwork of the metaphysic of morals. Oxford: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lecuyer, A., Lotte, F., Reilly, R. B., Leeb, R., Hirose, M., & Slater, M. (2008). Brain-computer interfaces, virtual reality, and videogames. Computer, 41(10), 66–72. doi:10.1109/MC.2008.410.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Locke, J. (1689). The second treatise of government (3rd ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lopes, A. C., Pires, G., & Nunes, U. (2013). Assisted navigation for a brain-actuated intelligent wheelchair. Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 61(3), 245–258. doi:10.1016/j.robot.2012.11.002.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Martinovic, I., Davies, D., Frank, M., Perito, D., Ros, T., & Song, D. (2012). On the feasibility of side-channel attacks with brain-computer interfaces. In Presented at the 21st USENIC Security Symposium, Bellevie, WA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Matthias, A. (2004). The responsibility gap: Ascribing responsibility for the actions of learning automata. Ethics and Information Technology, 6(3), 175–183. doi:10.1007/s10676-004-3422-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McGee, E. M. (2007). Should there be a law – Brain chips: Ethical and policy issues. Thomas M. Cooley Law Review, 24, 81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mill, J. S. (1859). On liberty. London: Penguin.

    Google Scholar 

  • Minati, L., Nigri, A., Rosazza, C., & Bruzzone, M. G. (2012). Thoughts turned into high-level commands: Proof-of-concept study of a vision-guided robot arm driven by functional MRI (fMRI) signals. Medical Engineering & Physics, 34(5), 650–658. doi:10.1016/j.medengphy.2012.02.004.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Morozov, E. (2013, March 9). How Facebook could get you arrested. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/09/facebook-arrested-evgeny-morozov-extract

  • Nijholt, A., Bos, D. P.-O., & Reuderink, B. (2009). Turning shortcomings into challenges: Brain–computer interfaces for games. Entertainment Computing, 1(2), 85–94. doi:10.1016/j.entcom.2009.09.007.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Brolchain, F., & Gordijn, B. Brain-computer interfaces and user responsibility. In ten Have, H., & Gordijn, B. (Eds.). Handbook of global bioethics. New York: Springer (forthcoming).

    Google Scholar 

  • Persson, I., & Savulescu, J. (2012). Unfit for the future: The need for moral enhancement. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Pires, G., Nunes, U., & Castelo-Branco, M. (2012). Evaluation of brain-computer interfaces in accessing computer and other devices by people with severe motor impairments. Procedia Computer Science, 14, 283–292. doi:10.1016/j.procs.2012.10.032.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Plass-Oude Bos, D., Reuderink, B., Van der Lar, B., Gürkök, H., Mühl, C., Poel, M., Nijholt, A., & Heylen, D. (2010). Brain-computer interfacing and games. In Brain-computer interfaces. London: Springer.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rivington, J. (2013). Google glass: What you need to know. TechRadar. Retrieved April 2, 2013, from http://www.techradar.com/news/video/google-glass-what-you-need-to-know-1078114

  • Scanlon, T. (1975). Thomson on privacy. Philosophy & Public Affairs, 4(4), 315–322. doi:10.2307/2265076.

    Google Scholar 

  • Talwar, S. K., Xu, S., Hawley, E. S., Weiss, S. A., Moxon, K. A., & Chapin, J. K. (2002). Behavioural neuroscience: Rat navigation guided by remote control. Nature, 417(6884), 37–38. doi:10.1038/417037a.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tamburrini, G. (2009). Brain to computer communication: Ethical perspectives on interaction models. Neuroethics, 2(3), 137–149. doi:10.1007/s12152-009-9040-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • The Universal Declaration of Human Rights. (1948). Retrieved April 2, 2013, from http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/

  • Wolpaw, J. R., Birbaumer, N., Heetderks, W. J., McFarland, D. J., Peckham, P. H., Schalk, G., Donchin, E., Quatrano, L. A., Robinson, C. J., & Vaughan, T. M. (2000). Brain–computer interface technology: a review of the first international meeting. IEEE Transactions of Rehabilitation Engineering, 8(2), 164–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Ethics, Dublin City University, Dublin, Ireland

    Fiachra O’Brolcháin & Bert Gordijn

Authors
  1. Fiachra O’Brolcháin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Bert Gordijn
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Fiachra O’Brolcháin .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

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

    Jens Clausen

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

    Neil Levy

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2015 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht

About this entry

Cite this entry

O’Brolcháin, F., Gordijn, B. (2015). Ethics of Brain–Computer Interfaces for Enhancement Purposes. In: Clausen, J., Levy, N. (eds) Handbook of Neuroethics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_89

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-4707-4_89

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-007-4706-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-007-4707-4

  • eBook Packages: Humanities, Social Sciences and Law

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation