Abstract
Contemporary brain reading technologies promise to provide the possibility to decode and interpret mental states and processes. Brain reading could have numerous societally relevant implications. In particular, the private character of mind might be affected, generating ethical and legal concerns. This paper aims at equipping ethicists and policy makers with conceptual tools to support an evaluation of the potential applicability and the implications of current and near future brain reading technology. We start with clarifying the concepts of mind reading and brain reading, and the different kinds of mental states that could in principle be read. Subsequently, we devise an evaluative framework that is composed of five criteria-accuracy, reliability, informativity, concealability and enforceability-aimed at enabling a clearer estimation of the degree to which brain reading might be realistically deployed in contexts where mental privacy could be at stake. While accuracy and reliability capture how well a certain method can access mental content, informativity indicates the relevance the obtainable data have for practical purposes. Concealability and enforceability are particularly important for the evaluation of concerns about potential violations of mental privacy and civil rights. The former concerns the degree with which a brain reading method can be concealed from an individual’s perception or awareness. The latter regards the extent to which a method can be used against somebody’s will. With the help of these criteria, stakeholders can orient themselves in the rapidly developing field of brain reading.
Highlights
Mind reading is as old as social interaction
The act of making inferences regarding the occurrence and nature of mental states has recently been referred to as ‘brain reading’ (Haynes 2012): the observation of brain structure and/or activity aimed at obtaining insights about mental states
Mental states are private in the sense that individuals have a ‘first person perspective’ (Shoemaker 1988, 1994) on their inner mental life
Summary
Mind reading is as old as social interaction. In daily life, we are constantly trying to understand the beliefs, desires, intentions, feelings and capacities of other agents (either human or animal). Brain measurements can reveal to a certain extent the presence -or the probability thereof- of certain features that characterize or underlie the attributes or behavioral dispositions of a person (Ma et al 2014), such as intelligence (Malpas et al 2016), self-control (Krämer and Gruber 2015; Maier et al 2015), sexual orientation (Habermeyer et al 2013; Poeppl et al 2015; Ponseti 2012) etc This can be done either by checking for certain brain anatomical features (through either neurobiological analysis or by the means of structural imaging technologies), or by identifying characteristic patterns of neural activation that can be associated to certain traits. Once this procedure is complete and successful, one can apply the trained algorithm to categorize and decode mental states on the basis of the observation of the neural activity measurements
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