Cohen Marcus Lionel Brown

A pressing worry in the ongoing neurorights debate is the language used to advocate for newly proposed rights. This paper addresses this concern by first examining the partial and ambiguous associations between mind reading and neurotechnology, often cited by advocates in support of the right to mental privacy. Secondly, it addresses the conceptual foundations of mind reading, distinguishing between natural, digital, and neurotechnological forms. These distinctions serve to highlight the normative parallels in privacy vulnerabilities between neurotechnology and other mind-reading methods, with an emphasis on multimodal digital systems. I suggest that authentic safeguards for the mental realm demand an expansion of the protective ambit beyond brain-targeted devices to recognize the spectrum of mind-reading applications. Ultimately, this urges re-evaluation of the scope and justification of a right to mental privacy owing to the need for coherent frameworks in an increasingly interconnected digital landscape.

In moral bioenhancement (MBE) discourse, aggression has been identified as one potential target of biomedical intervention. Early suggestions that aggression might be modulated to improve moral outcomes were met with strong opposition from those claiming it is impossible to modulate aggression without harming traits of distinct social and agential value. If we are to preclude (or endorse) particular paths to moral enhancement then we ought to establish sound reasons for doing so. However, in paying due consideration to contemporary aggression studies we will see that current efforts to rule out aggression as one such path are untenable. I argue that the rejection of aggression-reduction as a viable target of MBE is a mistake, and that this arises from a rudimentary view of aggression which is incompatible with current scientific consensus. Drawing on contemporary psychological views I argue that it is necessary to distinguish subtypes of aggression, and that once these distinctions are recognised there is a potential space for MBE to target the biological correlates of specific kinds of aggressive behaviour. Ultimately, I suggest that aggression remains a legitimate target of inquiry, and that mitigating deleterious manifestations may yet offer one prospect for MBE.