Protecting Minds: The Right Against Mental Interference

It is widely accepted that we each possess a right against interference with our bodies. In this book, Thomas Douglas argues that we also possess an analogous right against interference with our minds. He defends the existence of this right—both by appealing to intuitions regarding cases and by invoking the notion of self-ownership—and he describes its content and contours. In Douglas' view, the right against mental interference protects us against actions that significantly alter our mental states and operate via processes that are insensitive to the reasons that bear on the mental alteration. The interventions that most obviously infringe the right are 'nonconsensual neurointerventions'—interventions that alter a person's mental states by physically modulating their brain states, and are performed without the target's consent. But Douglas argues that some psychological forms of influence can infringe the right too. Examples include the use of subliminal imagery and conditioning-based interventions, such as the use of loot boxes in computer games. This book contributes both to the increasingly vigorous debate over 'neurorights' and to the wider discussion of the ethics of mental and behavioural influence. Such discussion has traditionally treated manipulation, coercion and persuasion as the most important categories of influence; this volume introduces mental interference as a further category warranting attention. An open access title available under the terms of a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 licence.