Personal Liability and Human Free Will in the Background of Emerging Neuroethical Issues: Some Remarks Arising From Recent Case Law

Abstract

In this paper, the author analyses the issues connected to emerging neurotechnologies, in particular their effects on legal concepts like capacity, liability, testimony, and evidence, and also on fundamental constitutional rights and freedoms like the right to autonomy and the right not to be treated without consent in the general framework of the principle of human dignity. Starting from preliminary remarks on the key-concepts of neuroethics/technoethics, neurolaw/technolaw, the author investigates how personal liability is changing in the framework of new scientific developments. The paper underlines that neurolaw challenges some of the traditional legal institutions in the field of law e.g., criminal law. From the point of view of ethics, the paper concludes that neuroethics is not challenged by the data coming from the use of emerging neurotechnologies, but human self-perception is strongly affected by it.