Peer-reviewed articles

“The financial crisis, and associated scandals, created a sense of a juridical deficit with regard to the financial sector. forms of independent judgement within the sector appeared compromised, while judgement over the sector seemed unattainable. elites, in the classical millsian sense of those taking tacitly coordinated ‘big decisions’ over the rest of the public, seemed absent. this article argues that the eradication of jurisdictional elites is an effect of neoliberalism, as articulated most coherently by hayek. it characterizes the neoliberal project as an effort to elevate ‘unconscious’ processes over ‘conscious’ ones, which in practice means elevating cybernetic, non- human systems and processes over discursive spheres of politics and judgement. yet such a system still produces its own types of elite power, which come to consist in acts of translation, rather than judgement. firstly, there are ‘cyborg intermediaries’: elites which operate largely within the system of codes, data, screens and prices. secondly, there are ‘diplomatic intermediaries’: elites who come to narrate and justify what markets (and associated technologies and bodies) are ‘saying’. the paper draws on lazzarato’s work on signifying vs asignifying semiotics in order to articulate this, and concludes by considering the types of elite crisis which these forms of power tend to produce.”

“The article presents an historical overview of the emergence of the financial sector within the u.s. banking system, focusing on the developments of the end of the 20th century which led to the formation of a financial elite. introductory comments are given noting the rise and fall of different regulatory regimes within the u.s. banking sector in the first half of the century up to 1980. in-depth discussion is then provided highlighting the concentration of the financial sector as a dominant force in the nation’s economy up to the events of the 2008 global financial crisis and the return of political demands for regulation.”

“Libertarians are an increasingly prominent ideological group in u.s. politics, yet they have been largely unstudied. across 16 measures in a large web-based sample that included 11,994 self-identified libertarians, we sought to understand the moral and psychological characteristics of self-described libertarians. based on an intuitionist view of moral judgment, we focused on the underlying affective and cognitive dispositions that accompany this unique worldview. compared to self-identified liberals and conservatives, libertarians showed 1) stronger endorsement of individual liberty as their foremost guiding principle, and weaker endorsement of all other moral principles; 2) a relatively cerebral as opposed to emotional cognitive style; and 3) lower interdependence and social relatedness. as predicted by intuitionist theories concerning the origins of moral reasoning, libertarian values showed convergent relationships with libertarian emotional dispositions and social preferences. our findings add to a growing recognition of the role of personality differences in the organization of political attitudes.”

“Mirando la pagina de este hombre resulta que es un abogado que dirige un centro por el derecho a la libertad cognitiva y dirigia una revista del mismo nombre que defiende el derecho a mi propio cerebro, especialmente en (a) nadie me puede obligar a tomar psicofarmacos (b) tengo todo el derecho a consumar las drogas que me de la gana (incluyendo marihuana, cannabis etc”

“Rapid advancements in human neuroscience and neurotechnology open unprecedented possibilities for accessing, collecting, sharing and manipulating information from the human brain. such applications raise important challenges to human rights principles that need to be addressed to prevent unintended consequences. this paper assesses the implications of emerging neurotechnology applications in the context of the human rights framework and suggests that existing human rights may not be sufficient to respond to these emerging issues. after analysing the relationship between neuroscience and human rights, we identify four new rights that may become of great relevance in the coming decades: the right to cognitive liberty, the right to mental privacy, the right to mental integrity, and the right to psychological continuity.”

“Cognitive ability theory claims that peoples’ competences are decisive for economic wealth. for a large number of countries lynn and vanhanen (2002) have published data on mean intelligence levels and compared them to wealth and productivity indicators. the correlation between intelligence and wealth was supported by studies done by different authors using different countries and controls. based on their pioneering research two research questions were developed: does intelligence lead to wealth or does wealth lead to intelligence or are other determinants involved? if a nation’s intelligence increases wealth, how does intelligence achieve this? to answer them we need longitudinal studies and theoretical attempts, investigating cognitive ability effects at the levels of individuals, institutions and societies and examining factors which lie between intelligence and growth. two studies, using a cross-lagged panel design or latent variables and measuring economic liberty, shares of intellectual classes and indicators of scientific-technological accomplishment, show that cognitive ability leads to higher wealth and that for this process the achievement of high ability groups is important, stimulating growth through scientific-technological progress and by influencing the quality of economic institutions. in modernity, wealth depends on cognitive resources enabling the evolution of cognitive capitalism. © 2011 elsevier ltd.”

“Developers of nbic (nano-bio-info-cogno) technologies face a multitude of obstacles, not the least of which is navigating the public ethics of their applied research. biotechnologies have received widespread media attention and spawned heated interest in their perceived social implications. now, in view of the rapidly expanding purview of neuroscience and the growing array of technologic developments capable of affecting or monitoring cognition, the emerging field of neuroethics calls for a consideration of the social and ethical implications of neuroscientific discoveries and trends. to negotiate the complex ethical issues at stake in new and emerging kinds of technologies for improving human cognition, we need to overcome political, disciplinary, and religious sectarianism. we need analytical models that protect values of personhood at the heart of a functional democracy-values that allow, as much as possible, for individual decision-making, despite transformations in our understanding and ability to manipulate cognitive processes. addressing cognitive enhancement from the legal and ethical notion of ‘cognitive liberty’ provides a powerful tool for assessing and encouraging nbic developments.”

“In their 2008 book nudge: improving decisions about health, wealth, andnhappiness, richard thaler and cass sunstein use research from psychologynand behavioral economics to argue that people suffer from systematicncognitive biases. they propose that policy makers mitigate these biasesnby framing people’s choices in ways that help people act in their ownnself-interest. thaler and sunstein call this approach “libertariannpaternalism,{’’} and they market it as “the real third way.{’’} in thisnessay, i argue that the book is a brilliant contribution to thinkingnabout policy making but that “choice architecture{’’} is not just ansolution to the problem of cognitive biases. rather, it is a means ofnapproaching any kind of policy making. i further argue that policynmakers must take externalities into account, even when using choicenarchitecture. finally, i argue that libertarian paternalism can best benseen as motivated by what sunstein has celebrated in his work onnconstitutional theory: a humility about the possibility of policy-makernerror embodied in learned hand’s famous aphorism about the “spirit ofnliberty{’’} and an attempt to reduce social conflicts by searching fornwhat john rawls called an “overlapping consensus.{’’}.”

“The rapid development of neurotechnologies poses novel constitutional issues for criminal law and criminal procedure. these technologies can identify directly from brain waves whether a person is familiar with a stimulus like a face or a weapon, can model blood flow in the brain to indicate whether a person is lying, and can even interfere with brain processes themselves via high-powered magnets to cause a person to be less likely to lie to an investigator. these technologies implicate the constitutional privilege against compelled, self-incriminating speech under the fifth amendment and the right to be free of unreasonable search and seizure under the fourth amendment of the united states constitution. law enforcement use of these technologies will not just require extending existing constitutional doctrine to cover new facts but will challenge these doctrines’ foundations. this short chapter discusses cognitive privacy and liberty under the fourth and fifth amendments, showing how current jurisprudence under both amendments stumbles on limited and limiting distinctions between the body and the mind, the physical and the informational. brain processes and emanations sit at the juncture of these categories. this chapter proposes a way to transcend these limitations while remaining faithful to precedent, extending these important constitutional protections into a new era of direct access to the brain/mind.”