Welcome to the brave new world of neuropolitics! In this week’s NLJ, Harry Lambert, Outer Temple Chambers, continues his fascinating series on the fast-emerging area of neurorights with a look at free will, our sense of self, individual agency and freedom of thought.
Neuro-marketing and neuro-politics use strategies that sway us subconsciously without overt awareness. How do we regulate to protect the individual and wider society? The ‘capacity to manipulate consumer behaviour by exploiting subconscious responses’ threatens the ability to make informed choices.
Lambert, founder and head of the Centre for Neurotechnology & Law, writes: ‘Every interaction we have with the world is via the medium of the electrical impulses we refer to as “thought”. For that reason, we need to tread very carefully before we add a silicone intermediary in that process—one that has worked pretty well for hydrocarbon-based life for a few million years.’RELATED ARTICLES
