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What About the Interior Castle? Response to Ienca’S and Andorno’S New Human Rights in the Age of Neuroscience and Neurotechnology

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What About the Interior Castle? Response to Ienca’S and Andorno’S New Human Rights in the Age of Neuroscience and Neurotechnology ROCZNIKI TEOLOGICZNE Tom LXVI, zeszyt 3 − 2019 DOI: http://dx.do.org/10.18290/rt.2019.66.3-5 OKTAWIAN NAWROT WHAT ABOUT THE INTERIOR CASTLE? RESPONSE TO IENCA’S AND ANDORNO’S NEW HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF NEUROSCIENCE AND NEUROTECHNOLOGY Abstract.Ienca’s and Andorno’s propositions of three new human rights presented in the article “Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology” prima facie seems very attractive and adequate to nowadays dangerous for human freedom. But there are still a few very serious doubts. The first of them is very general and we can express it in the question: is there a possibility to reconcile the philosophy neuroscience/neurotechnology and the related with them way of thinking about the individual, with the philosophy of human rights? The second is more specific but strictly connected with the first one: how do we re- concile the technological infiltration into our interior castle − the brain and its associated mind − with the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, not only as our individual essence but also as part of the foundation of a democratic state ruled by law? In the article presented above I’ve tried to show the inadequacy of both systems, especially inherently associated with them visions of human being. Key words: cognitive liberty; freedom of thought; freedom of conscientious; neuroscience; philosophy of human rights. INTRODUCTION The tumultuous development of science and technology, which we are witnessing, is undoubtedly one of the most characteristic features of moderni- ty. Icons that symbolize everyday revolutions that successively change our Dr hab. OKTAWIAN NAWROT, prof. nadzw. UG − Katedra Teorii i Filozofii Pan´stwa i Prawa, Se˛dzia Sadu˛ Najwyz˙szego; adres do korespondencji: ul. Jana Baz˙yn´skiego 6, 80-309 Gdan´sk; e-mail: [email protected] Prof. OKTAWIAN NAWROT − Department of Theory and Philosophy of Law and State Faculty of Law and Administration University of Gdansk; address for correspondence − e-mail: [email protected]; [email protected] 70 OKTAWIAN NAWROT view of reality – the cute visage of Dolly the sheep, strings of numbers re- presenting the world-wide web and virtual reality, smartphones, brain-compu- ter interfaces (BCIs), miniature chips, nanopills, etc. – have stormed into our consciousness, becoming a natural part of reality. It would be a truism to say that taking away electronic gadgets from modern representatives of the tech- nologically advanced part of the world would probably lead to that part of the world feeling lost and certainly as if it lost important reference points enabling self-identification and smooth functioning. Science and technology have taken root in our world and even in us. First we learned about it, now it learns about us. The devices we use every day, like the smartphone men- tioned above, often “know” us better than our loved ones. They “know” our interests, desires, habits, monitor our physical activity, monitor our progress, help manage our finances, provide us with entertainment, motivate us, suggest what choice to make, participate in decision-making. They live with us in perfect symbiosis, like the bacteria living inside our bodies enabling proper functioning. Without going into an assessment of this state of affairs, since that is not the purpose of this paper, I will allow myself to consider it a fact that is not subject to discussion in principle. The next step on the path of permeation of the biological with the techno- logical is neurotechnology, which was described by Marcello Ienca and Ro- berto Andorno in the article “Towards new human rights in the age of neuro- science and neurotechnology” (2017). Not only did the authors present the latest achievements of neuroscience as well as the breakthroughs that are likely to occur in the near future, but they also suggested responses to the occurring advances, writing them into the frames of the human rights protec- tion systems. In particular, they developed three extremely intriguing new human rights: 1. the right to mental privacy, 2. the right to mental integrity, 3. the right to psychological continuity. By agreeing in principle with the possibility of deriving these rights from the already existing human rights catalog, I would like to draw attention to one – in my view – basic issue and related doubts. Namely, how do we reconcile the already clearly visible on the horizon, and perhaps desirable to many, technological infiltration into our interior castle – the brain and its associated mind – with the freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, not only as our individual essence but also as part of the foundation of a democratic state ruled by law? This article examines the possibility of reconciling neuroscience and neurotechnology, and the related with them way of thinking about the indi- vidual, with the philosophy of human rights, in which freedom of thought, conscience and religion play a key role. The article shows the inadequacy of WHAT ABOUT THE INTERIOR CASTLE? 71 both systems, implying the need to reject or radically reconstruct one of them – I am afraid that the system of human rights protection. 1. PHILOSOPHY OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES VERSUS PHILOSOPHY OF HUMAN RIGHTS On May 4-5, 2015, at the Council of Europe headquarters in Strasbourg, the international conference “Emerging technologies and human rights” took place. The purpose of this event was to identify and discuss the dangers of science and technology, including neuroscience and neurotechnology, to hu- man rights and then indicate the values and associated freedoms and rights that should be safeguarded. Panelists drew attention to the fact that the process and consequences of the current technological convergence, in particular the convergence of nano- technology, biotechnology, information technology, and cognitive science (NBIC convergence), are something completely different from the centuries of binding and mutual use of achievements in particular fields of science and technology. The reality that thanks to NBIC convergence is uncovered and the possibilities associated with it go beyond the goals set in traditional scientific disciplines and related technologies. Consequently, the problems that arise from this convergence diverge from the already complex problems caused by advances in biology and medicine. These problems arise in areas which, although they are still being created, have become an important part of our reality. These areas are “between” the traditionally understood realms of reality – humans and the surrounding world, biological life and artificial life, man and machine, intelligence and artificial intelligence, thought and information. It is impossible to assign them unequivocally to traditionally recognized areas of science, especially natural sciences. Biology and medi- cine, whose domain is the study of the living world, do not have enough tools to describe these phenomena; the instrument of physics, which focuses on understanding the inanimate world, is also inadequate. Biology is increa- singly becoming technology, and technology biology. In the report published over 15 years ago by the National Science Founda- tion (NSF) and the United States Department of Commerce titled “Converging Technologies for Improving Human Performance: Nanotechnology, Biotech- nology, Information Technology and Cognitive Science” the authors indicated the following areas that NBIC convergence could particularly impact in the near future: expanding human cognition and communication, improving hu- 72 OKTAWIAN NAWROT man health and physical capabilities, enhancing group and societal outcomes, national security and unifying science and education (Roco, Bainbridge 2003, p. X-XI). Going beyond the perspective of twenty years, the reports’ authors pre- dicted that NBIC convergence will have a significant effect on areas and phenomena such as: work efficiency, the human body and mind through the life cycle, communication and education, mental health, aeronautics and space flight, food and agriculture, sustainable and intelligent environments, self- presentation and fashion, and transformation of civilization (Roco, Bainbridge 2003, p. X-XI; Bainbridge, Roco 2005). Without describing the specific technologies that are currently being deve- loped, and which are to be the cause of the impressive achievements men- tioned above, including in particular neurotechnology, the underlying vision of man should be identified. All of these technologies are founded on the well-known purely biological philosophy, and even more so the mechanistic vision of man. As Thomas Hobbes and Descartes emphasized in the 17th century, and later Julien Offray de la Mettrie even more emphatically, man can be described as any mechanism can be described. “Yet a clock construc- ted with wheels and weights observes all the laws of its nature just as closely when it is badly made and tells the wrong time as when it completely fulfils the wishes of the clockmaker. In the same way, I might consider the body of a man as a kind of machine…” (Descartes 1985, p. 58-59). From this perspective, a person is treated as a kind of mechanism, or as 1. neither better nor worse than other mechanisms – just slightly different; or as 2. a mechanism of a particular, distinguished type that can be compared to other mechanisms within the type to which it was assigned. Bringing man down to the level of the machine obviously brings with it serious doubts as to the possibility of reconciling the a priori model adopted in the “philosophy” of NBIC convergence with the vision of humans consti- tuting the foundation of the human rights protection systems. Just as with every reductionism, the mechanistic approach takes away certain human qua- lities from the individual. In this case, the stakes are really high – the consti- tutive qualities of a human being perceived through the anthropologic frame- work as the foundation of the idea of a democratic state ruled by law, and thus the key values for that state. Thus the stakes are inherent human dignity, the identity and integrity of a human being, equality, and freedom.
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