Minds, Freedoms and Rights

Recent developments in the cognitive sciences, particularly the emergence of neurotechnologies and their potential applications in a variety of contexts, have prompted a debate on what freedoms and rights people have in relation to their brains and minds. Lawyers and philosophers are especially interested in the possibilities offered by the neurosciences in conducting risk assessments and risk management. Minds, Freedoms and Rights deepens our understanding of these legal issues by investigating the human rights that relate to the mind and by exploring their implications for possible uses for neurotechnology for criminal rehabilitation or “neurorehabilitation”. By harnessing and integrating both legal and ethical perspectives, the authors investigate possible uses of neurorehabilitation that are cutting-edge yet simultaneously protect and respect human rights and freedoms. This title is also available as open access on Cambridge Core.

Dr. Sjors Ligthart is an associate professor of criminal law at Tilburg University, the Netherlands, and the principal investigator of the project Mental Liberty in the Age of Modern Technology: Towards Absolute Protection of the Mind? (VI.Veni.231 R.022). He is a postdoctoral researcher at the Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology, Utrecht University, the Netherlands, on the research project Law and Ethics of Neurotechnology in Criminal Justice (VI.C.201.067). Ligthart is the author of Coercive Brain-Reading in Criminal Justice: An Analysis of European Human Rights Law (Cambridge University Press 2022) and co-editor of Neurolaw: Advances in Neuroscience, Justice and Security (Palgrave Macmillan 2021).

Dr. Emma Dore-Horgan is a Government of Ireland postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Philosophy, University College Cork, previously working on the research project Law and Ethics of Neurotechnology in Criminal Justice (VI.C.201.067). She is an honorary research associate of the Uehiro Oxford Institute for Practical Ethics. She has published in Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Criminal Law and Philosophy, Bioethics, AJOB Neuroscience and the Journal of Law and the Biosciences.

Prof. dr. Gerben Meynen is full professor of ethics, in particular bioethics, Department of Philosophy, VU University Amsterdam, and full professor of forensic psychiatry, Willem Pompe Institute for Criminal Law and Criminology of Utrecht University. He is the author of Legal Insanity. Explorations in Psychiatry, Law, and Ethics (Springer 2016) and he co-edited Neurolaw: Advances in Neuroscience, Justice and Security (Palgrave Macmillan 2021). In addition, he is one of the editors of Brain and Crime, Volume 197 in the Elsevier series Handbook of Clinical Neurology (2023). In 2021, he received a Vici grant from the Dutch Research Council (NWO) for the project Law and Ethics of Neurotechnology in Criminal Justice (VI.C.201.067). He also works as a psychiatrist.