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Cohn, B. S.. (1996). Colonialism and its forms of knowledge : the British in India. Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1525/ae.1998.25.1.82.1
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For more detailed information visit: conspiracy-theories.eu

The term “conspiracy theory” was invented and put into public discourse by the CIA in 1964 in order to discredit the many skeptics who challenged the Warren Commission’s conclusion that President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by a lone gunman named Lee Harvey Oswald, who himself was assassinated while in police custody before he could be questioned. The CIA used its friends in the media to launch a campaign to make suspicion of the Warren Commission report a target of ridicule and hostility. This campaign was “one of the most successful propaganda initiatives of all time.”

This writes political science professor Lance deHaven-Smith, in his peer-reviewed book which was published by the University of Texas Press. He reports the story of how the CIA succeeded in creating in the public mind uncritical, reflexive, automatic, (System 1) stigmatization of those who challenge official government explanations (cf. ostracism).

CIA Document #1035-960

RE: Concerning Criticism of the Warren Report

Note: Released in response to a 1976 FOIA request by the New York Times. The document shows how the term “conspiracy” is being utilised to prevent critical rational analysis and “dissenting” perspectives.

1. Our Concern. From the day of President Kennedy’s assassination on, there has been speculation about the responsibility for his murder. Although this was stemmed for a time by the Warren Commission report, (which appeared at the end of September 1964), various writers have now had time to scan the Commission’s published report and documents for new pretexts for questioning, and there has been a new wave of books and articles criticizing the Commission’s findings. In most cases the critics have speculated as to the existence of some kind of conspiracy, and often they have implied that the Commission itself was involved. Presumably as a result of the increasing challenge to the Warren Commission‘s report, a public opinion poll recently indicated that 46% of the American public did not think that Oswald acted alone, while more than half of those polled thought that the Commission had left some questions unresolved. Doubtless polls abroad would show similar, or possibly more adverse results.

2. This trend of opinion is a matter of concern to the U.S. government, including our organization. The members of the Warren Commission were naturally chosen for their integrity, experience and prominence. They represented both major parties, and they and their staff were deliberately drawn from all sections of the country. Just because of the standing of the Commissioners, efforts to impugn their rectitude and wisdom tend to cast doubt on the whole leadership of American society. Moreover, there seems to be an increasing tendency to hint that President Johnson himself, as the one person who might be said to have benefited, was in some way responsible for the assassination.

Innuendo of such seriousness affects not only the individual concerned, but also the whole reputation of the American government. Our organization itself is directly involved: among other facts, we contributed information to the investigation. Conspiracy theories have frequently thrown suspicion on our organization, for example by falsely alleging that Lee Harvey Oswald worked for us. The aim of this dispatch is to provide material countering and discrediting the claims of the conspiracy theorists, so as to inhibit the circulation of such claims in other countries. Background information is supplied in a classified section and in a number of unclassified attachments.

3. Action. We do not recommend that discussion of the assassination question be initiated where it is not already taking place. Where discussion is active [business] addresses are requested:

a. To discuss the publicity problem with [?] and friendly elite contacts (especially politicians and editors), pointing out that the Warren Commission made as thorough an investigation as humanly possible, that the charges of the critics are without serious foundation, and that further speculative discussion only plays into the hands of the opposition. Point out also that parts of the conspiracy talk appear to be deliberately generated by Communist propagandists. Urge them to use their influence to discourage unfounded and irresponsible speculation.

b. To employ propaganda assets to [negate] and refute the attacks of the critics. Book reviews and feature articles are particularly appropriate for this purpose. The unclassified attachments to this guidance should provide useful background material for passing to assets. Our ploy should point out, as applicable, that the critics are (I) wedded to theories adopted before the evidence was in, (I) politically interested, (III) financially interested, (IV) hasty and inaccurate in their research, or (V) infatuated with their own theories. In the course of discussions of the whole phenomenon of criticism, a useful strategy may be to single out Epstein‘s theory for attack, using the attached Fletcher [?] article and Spectator piece for background. (Although Mark Lane’s book is much less convincing that Epstein‘s and comes off badly where confronted by knowledgeable critics, it is also much more difficult to answer as a whole, as one becomes lost in a morass of unrelated details.)

4. In private to media discussions not directed at any particular writer, or in attacking publications which may be yet forthcoming, the following arguments should be useful:

a. No significant new evidence has emerged which the Commission did not consider. The assassination is sometimes compared (e.g., by Joachim Joesten and Bertrand Russell) with the Dreyfus case; however, unlike that case, the attack on the Warren Commission have produced no new evidence, no new culprits have been convincingly identified, and there is no agreement among the critics. (A better parallel, though an imperfect one, might be with the Reichstag fire of 1933, which some competent historians (Fritz Tobias, AJ.P. Taylor, D.C. Watt) now believe was set by Vander Lubbe on his own initiative, without acting for either Nazis or Communists; the Nazis tried to pin the blame on the Communists, but the latter have been more successful in convincing the world that the Nazis were to blame.)

b. Critics usually overvalue particular items and ignore others. They tend to place more emphasis on the recollections of individual witnesses (which are less reliable and more divergent–and hence offer more hand-holds for criticism) and less on ballistics, autopsy, and photographic evidence. A close examination of the Commission’s records will usually show that the conflicting eyewitness accounts are quoted out of context, or were discarded by the Commission for good and sufficient reason.

c. Conspiracy on the large scale often suggested would be impossible to conceal in the United States, esp. since informants could expect to receive large royalties, etc. Note that Robert Kennedy, Attorney General at the time and John F. Kennedy’s brother, would be the last man to overlook or conceal any conspiracy. And as one reviewer pointed out, Congressman Gerald R. Ford would hardly have held his tongue for the sake of the Democratic administration, and Senator Russell would have had every political interest in exposing any misdeeds on the part of Chief Justice Warren. A conspirator moreover would hardly choose a location for a shooting where so much depended on conditions beyond his control: the route, the speed of the cars, the moving target, the risk that the assassin would be discovered. A group of wealthy conspirators could have arranged much more secure conditions.

d. Critics have often been enticed by a form of intellectual pride: they light on some theory and fall in love with it; they also scoff at the Commission because it did not always answer every question with a flat decision one way or the other. Actually, the make-up of the Commission and its staff was an excellent safeguard against over-commitment to any one theory, or against the illicit transformation of probabilities into certainties.

e. Oswald would not have been any sensible person’s choice for a co-conspirator. He was a “loner,” mixed up, of questionable reliability and an unknown quantity to any professional intelligence service.

f. As to charges that the Commission’s report was a rush job, it emerged three months after the deadline originally set. But to the degree that the Commission tried to speed up its reporting, this was largely due to the pressure of irresponsible speculation already appearing, in some cases coming from the same critics who, refusing to admit their errors, are now putting out new criticisms.

g. Such vague accusations as that “more than ten people have died mysteriously” can always be explained in some natural way e.g.: the individuals concerned have for the most part died of natural causes; the Commission staff questioned 418 witnesses (the FBI interviewed far more people, conduction 25,000 interviews and re interviews), and in such a large group, a certain number of deaths are to be expected. (When Penn Jones, one of the originators of the “ten mysterious deaths” line, appeared on television, it emerged that two of the deaths on his list were from heart attacks, one from cancer, one was from a head-on collision on a bridge, and one occurred when a driver drifted into a bridge abutment.)

5. Where possible, counter speculation by encouraging reference to the Commission’s Report itself. Open-minded foreign readers should still be impressed by the care, thoroughness, objectivity and speed with which the Commission worked. Reviewers of other books might be encouraged to add to their account the idea that, checking back with the report itself, they found it far superior to the work of its critics.

List of studies on conspiracy theories

(Source: conspiracytheories.eu)

92Wilson, Warner, Larry Dennis, and Allen P. Wadsworth Jr. “‘Authoritarianism’ of the Left and the Right.” Bulletin of the Psychonomic Society, vol. 7, no. 3, 1976, pp. 271-74. SpringerLink, doi.org/10.3758/BF03337186.Winiewski, Mikolaj, Soral Viktor, and Michał Bilewicz. “Conspiracy Theories on the Map of Stereotype Content: Survey and Historical Evidence.” The Psychology of Conspiracy: A Festschrift for Miroslaw Kofta, edited by Michał Bilewicz, Aleksandra Cichocka, and Wiktor Soral, Routledge, 2015, pp. 23-42.Winston, Andrew S. “The ‘Hidden Hand’”: Notes on the Perpetuation of Jewish Conspiracy Theories.” Clio’s Psyche, vol. 7, no. 3, 2000, pp. 136-38.Winter, Aaron. “My Enemies Must Be Friends: The American Extreme Right, Conspiracy Theory, Islam, and the Middle East.” Conspiracy Theories in the United States and the Middle East: A Comparative Approach, edited by Michael Butter and Maurus Reinkowski, De Gruyter, 2014, pp. 35-58. Linguae & Litterae 29.Wippermann, Wolfgang. Agenten des Bösen: Verschwörungstheorien von Luther bis heute[Agents of Evil: Conspiracy Theories from Luther until Today]. be.bra-Verlag, 2007.Wisnicki, Adrian S. Conspiracy, Revolution, and Terrorism from Victorian Fiction to the Modern Novel. Routledge, 2008. Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory. Wood, C., and W. M. L. Finlay. “British National Party Representations of Muslims in the Month after the London Bombins: Homogeneity, Threat, and the Conspiracy Tradition.” The British Journal of Social Psychology, vol.47, no. 4, 2008, pp. 707-26. Wiley Online Library, doi.org/10.1348/014466607X264103.Wood, Gordon S. “Conspiracy and the Paranoid Style: Causality and Deceit in the Eighteenth Century.” The William and Mary Quarterly, vol.39, no. 3, 1982, pp. 402-41. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/1919580.—. The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787. U of North Carolina P, 1998.Wood, Michael J. “Conspiracy Suspicions as a Proxy for Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories: Implications for Theory and Measurement.” British Journal of Psycholgy, vol.108, no. 3, 2017, pp. 507-27.Wiley Online Library, doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12231.—. “Some Dare Call It Conspiracy: Labeling Something a Conspiracy Theory Does Not Reduce Belief in It.” Political Psychologyvol. 37, no. 5, 2016, pp. 695-705. Wiley Online Library, doi.org/10.1111/pops.12285.Wood, Michael J., and Karen M. Douglas. “Online Communication as a Window to Conspiracist Worldviews.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol.6, art. 836, 2015, pp. 1-8. Frontiers in Psychology, doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00836.—. “‘What about Building 7?’ A Social Psychological Study of Online Discussion of 9/11 Conspiracy Theories.” Frontiers in Psychology, vol.4, art. 409, 2013, pp. 1-9. Frontiers in Psychology, doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00409.Wood, Michael. J., Karen M. Douglas, and Robbie. M. Sutton. “Dead and Alive: Beliefs in Contradictory Conspiracy Theories.” Social Psychological and Personality Science, vol.3, no. 6, 2012, pp. 767-73. SAGE Journals, doi.org/10.1177/1948550611434786.Woods, Jeff R. Black Struggle, Red Scare: Segregation and Anti-Communism in the South, 1948-1968. Louisiana State UP, 2003. American History.Woodward, Mark. “Rumors, Religion, and Political Mobilization: Indonesian Cases, 1965-1998.” Rumor and Communication in Asia in the Internet Age, edited by Greg Dalziel, Routledge, 2013, pp. 94-106. Media, Culture and Social Change in Asia 32
93Wulff, Erich. “Paranoic Conspiratory Delusion.” Changing Conceptions of Conspiracy, edited by Carl F. Graumann and Serge Moscovici, Springer, 1987, pp. 171-89.Würgler, Andreas. “Conspiracy and Denunciation: A Local Affair and Its European Public (Bern, 1749).” Cultures of Communication from Reformation to Enlightenment: Constructing Publics in the Early Modern German Lands, edited by James van Horn Melton, Ashgate, 2002, pp. 119-31.Wyler, Helen, and Margit E. Oswald. “Why Misinformation Is Reported: Evidence from a Warning and a Source-Monitoring Task.” Memory, vol. 24, no. 10, 2016, pp. 1419-34. Taylor & Francis Online, doi.org/10.1080/09658211.2015.1117641.Yablokov, Ilya. “Conspiracy Theories as a Russian Public Diplomacy Tool: The Case of Russia Today(RT).” Politics, vol. 35, no. 3-4, 2015, pp. 301-15.SAGE Journals, doi.org/10.1111/1467-9256.12097.—. “Feinde, Verräter, fünfte Kolonnen: Verschwörungstheorien in Russland” [“Enemies, Traitors, Fifth Columns: Conspiracy Theories in Russia”]. Osteuropa, vol. 65, no. 4, 2015, pp. 99-114.—. Fortress Russia: Conspirac Theories in the Post-Soviet World. Polity, 2018.—. “Pussy Riot as Agent Provocateur: Conspiracy Theories and the Media Construction of Nation in Putin’s Russia.” Nationalities Papers, vol. 42, no. 4, 2015, pp. 622-36.Taylor & Francis Online, doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2014.923390. —. “Social Networks of Death: Conspiracy Panics and Professional Journalistic Ethics in the Post-Soviet Russia.” Les theories du complot à l’heure du numérique[Theories of Conspiracy in the Digital Age], special issue of Quaderni, vol. 94, pp. 53-62. OpenEdition, journals.openedition.org/quaderni/1113.—. “Why Are Russia’s Journalists So Prone to Conspiracy Theory?” Opendemocracy.net, 9 May 2016, www.opendemocracy.net/od-russia/ilya-yablokov/why-are-russia-s-journalists-so-prone-to-conspiracy-theory. Yusuf, Huma. “Conspiracy Fever: The US, Pakistan and its Media.” Survival, vol.53, no. 4, 2011, pp. 95-118. Taylor & Francis Online, doi.org/10.1080/00396338.2011.603564.Zaller, John R. The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion. Cambridge UP, 1992. Cambridge Studies in Public Opinion and Psychology.Zaller, John R., and Stanley Feldman. “A Simple Theory of the Survey Response: Answering Questions versus Revealing Preferences.” American Journal of Political Science, vol. 36, no. 3, 1992, pp. 579-616. JSTOR, doi.org/10.2307/2111583.Zantides, Evripides. “Cyprus and Conspiracy Theories after the Troika Levy in 2013.” Complotto [Conspiracy], edited by Massimo Leone, special issue of Lexia: Revisita di Semiotica [Journal of Semiotics], vol. 23-24, 2016, pp. 245-56.Zdybel, Lech. Idea Spisku i Teorie Spiskowe w Świetle Analiz krytycznych i Badań Historycznych[Conspiracy and Conspiracy Theories in the Light of Critical Analyses and Historical Research]. UMCS, 2002.—. “Теорія Змови у Політичній Міфології Сучасності” [“The Conspiracy Theory in Political Mythological Modernity”]. Громадянське Суспільство як Здійснення Свободи, vol.3, 2006, pp. 169-83.Zeineddine, Fouad Bou, and Felicia Pratto. “Political Distrust: The Seed and Fruit of Popular Empowerment.” Power, Politics, and Paranoia: Why People Are Suspicious of Their Leaders, edited by Jan-Willem van Prooijen and Paul A. M. van Lange, Cambridge UP, 2014, pp. 106-29.Cambridge Core, doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139565417.010.Zelizer, Barbie. Covering the Body: The Kennedy Assassination, the Media, and the Shaping of Collective Memory. U of Chicago P, 1992.
94Zernike, Kate. “The Persistence of Conspiracy Theories.” The New York Times, 30 April 2011, www.nytimes.com/2011/05/01/weekinreview/01conspiracy.html.Ziolkowski, Theodore. Lure of the Arcane: The Literature of Cult and Conspiracy. Johns Hopkins UP, 2013.Zollo, Fabiana, et al. “Debunking in a World of Tribes.” PLOS ONE, vol. 12, no. 7, 2017, pp. 1-27. PLOS ONE, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0181821. —. “Emotional Dynamics in the Age of Misinformation.” PLOS ONE, vol. 10, no. 9, 2015, pp. 1-22. PLOS ONE, doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0138740. Zonis, Marvin, and Craig M. Joseph. “Conspiracy Thinking in the Middle East.” Political Psychology, vol.15, no. 3, 1994, pp. 443-59. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/3791566.Zukier, Henri. “The Conspiratorial Imperative: Medieval Jewry in Western Europe.” Changing Conceptions of Conspiracy, edited by Carl F. Graumann and Serge Moscovici, Springer, 1987, pp. 87-103.Zwierlein, Cornel. “Security Politics and Conspiracy Theories in the Emerging European State System (15th/16th c.).” Security and Conspiracy in History, 16th to 21st Century, special issue of Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, vol. 38, no. 1 (143), 2013, pp. 69-95. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23644491.Zwierlein, Cornel, and Beatrice de Graaf. “Security and Conspiracy in Modern History.” Security and Conspiracy in History, 16th to 21st Century, special issue of Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, vol. 38, no. 1 (143), 2013, pp. 7-45.JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/23644489.

Further References

Gilens, M., & Page, B. I.. (2014). Testing theories of American politics: Elites, interest groups, and average citizens. Perspectives on Politics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/S1537592714001595
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“Each of four theoretical traditions in the study of american politics – which can be characterized as theories of majoritarian electoral democracy, economic elite domination, and two types of interest group pluralism, majoritarian pluralism and biased pluralism – offers different predictions about which sets of actors have how much influence over public policy: average citizens; economic elites; and organized interest groups, mass-based or business-oriented. a great deal of empirical research speaks to the policy influence of one or another set of actors, but until recently it has not been possible to test these contrasting theoretical predictions against each other within a single statistical model. this paper reports on an effort to do so, using a unique data set that includes measures of the key variables for 1,779 policy issues. multivariate analysis indicates that economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on u.s. government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence. the results provide substantial support for theories of economic elite domination and for theories of biased pluralism, but not for theories of majoritarian electoral democracy or majoritarian pluralism.”

Peters, T.. (2020). The Struggle for Cognitive Liberty: Retrofitting the Self in Activist Theology. Theology and Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/14746700.2020.1786219
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“Human freedom is best understood as self-determination. free action consists of deliberation, decision, and action. the free human person deserves dignity, that is, we each deserve to be treated as a moral end and not merely as a means to someone else’s end. neurocentrist philosophy-a form of eliminative materialism-based on neuroscience, however, threatens the extinction of the human self and, thereby, threatens to turn our experience of freedom and dignity into a mere delusion. this evacuates the moral agenda of every activist liberation theology. one task of today’s public theologian is to protect cognitive liberty, because it conceptually undergirds political, economic, and social liberation.”

Sommaggio, P., Mazzocca, M., Gerola, A., & Ferro, F.. (2017). Cognitive Liberty. A first step towards a human neuro-rights declaration. BioLaw Journal

Plain numerical DOI: 10.15168/blj.v0i3.255
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“This paper discusses the emerging debate concerning the concept of cognitive liberty and its connection with human rights. therefore, considering how recent developments of neurosciences are granting us an increasing ability to monitor and influence mental processes, this article aims to provide a clear definition of cognitive liberty understood as a necessary condition to all other freedoms that cannot be reduced to existing rights. in this regard, after presenting the most important positions on the issue, we introduce our point of view, according to which cognitive liberty allows us to lay the groundwork for building new neurorelated human rights.”

Weissenbacher, A.. (2018). Defending cognitive liberty in an age of moral engineering. Theology and Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/14746700.2018.1488476
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“In 2009, mark walker first proposed the genetic virtue project, advancing that science should explore using genetic engineering to eliminate moral evils just as it attempts to eliminate natural ones like disease. this seemed like an issue for the far future given the unique challenges. walker focused on the wrong aspect of personhood, however, as moral engineering of the brain appears to be a more likely possibility. as early aspects of moral engineering the brain are in development, especially through the manipulation of the neural correlates of religious and political beliefs, emotions, and behaviors, i consider several issues surrounding this project so as to protect individual rights and prevent future harms. i advance an internal criterion for the field called acceptability across ideologies to serve as a guide to protect against coercive and harmful technologies and analyze how current laws protecting cognitive liberty are lacking and in need of revision.”

Sommaggio, P., & Mazzocca, M.. (2020). Cognitive liberty and human rights. In Neuroscience and Law: Complicated Crossings and New Perspectives

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-38840-9_6
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“This chapter discusses the emerging debate regarding the relationship between the concept of cognitive liberty and human rights. for this reason, after briefly presenting some issues related to the development of recent neurotechnology, the different types of definitions of the concept of cognitive liberty, that have been recently proposed, are illustrated. starting from these last, this chapter aims to analyze how, the whole relationship between human rights and cognitive liberty can change depending on the legislative strategy that one prefers to undertake.”

Ienca, M.. (2017). The Right to Cognitive Liberty. Scientific American

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1038/scientificamerican0817-10
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Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2017). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Life Sciences, Society and Policy

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1186/s40504-017-0050-1
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“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.”

Walsh, C.. (2010). Drugs and human rights: Private palliatives, sacramental freedoms and cognitive liberty. International Journal of Human Rights

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/13642980802704270
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“This paper reviews the impact of ten years of domestic incorporation of the european convention on human rights (echr) on the evolution of the united kingdom’s primary piece of prohibitive drugs legislation, the misuse of drugs act 1971. the significant cases where traditional interpretation of this act has been challenged in the courts using the convention are discussed. structured thematically, this paper looks at the interplay between drug prohibition and human rights in addressing complex issues, such as our right to self-medicate, to practice our religion(s) freely, and to explore our own consciousness. the intention is to expose the untapped potential of the echr as a tool with which to fundamentally challenge the (discriminatory) drug policy of the united kingdom. © 2010 taylor & francis.”

Kraft, C. J., & Giordano, J.. (2017). Integrating brain science and law: Neuroscientific evidence and legal perspectives on protecting individual liberties. Frontiers in Neuroscience

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00621
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“Advances in neuroscientific techniques have found increasingly broader applications, including in legal neuroscience (or ‘neurolaw’), where experts in the brain sciences are called to testify in the courtroom. but does the incursion of neuroscience into the legal sphere constitute a threat to individual liberties? and what legal protections are there against such threats? in this paper, we outline individual rights as they interact with neuroscientific methods. we then proceed to examine the current uses of neuroscientific evidence, and ultimately determine whether the rights of the individual are endangered by such approaches. based on our analysis, we conclude that while federal evidence rules constitute a substantial hurdle for the use of neuroscientific evidence, more ethical safeguards are needed to protect against future violations of fundamental rights. finally, we assert that it will be increasingly imperative for the legal and neuroscientific communities to work together to better define the limits, capabilities, and intended direction of neuroscientific methods applicable for use in law.”

Rainey, S., Martin, S., Christen, A., Mégevand, P., & Fourneret, E.. (2020). Brain Recording, Mind-Reading, and Neurotechnology: Ethical Issues from Consumer Devices to Brain-Based Speech Decoding. Science and Engineering Ethics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s11948-020-00218-0
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“Brain reading technologies are rapidly being developed in a number of neuroscience fields. these technologies can record, process, and decode neural signals. this has been described as ‘mind reading technology’ in some instances, especially in popular media. should the public at large, be concerned about this kind of technology? can it really read minds? concerns about mind-reading might include the thought that, in having one’s mind open to view, the possibility for free deliberation, and for self-conception, are eroded where one isn’t at liberty to privately mull things over. themes including privacy, cognitive liberty, and self-conception and expression appear to be areas of vital ethical concern. overall, this article explores whether brain reading technologies are really mind reading technologies. if they are, ethical ways to deal with them must be developed. if they are not, researchers and technology developers need to find ways to describe them more accurately, in order to dispel unwarranted concerns and address appropriately those that are warranted.”

Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2021). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and Neurotechnology. Analisis Filosofico

Plain numerical DOI: 10.36446/AF.2021.386
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Wolpe, P. R.. (2017). Neuroprivacy and cognitive liberty. In The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.4324/9781315708652
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“The term ‘‘cognitive liberty’’ has been used in a variety of ways. in general, it refers to the degree to which an individual has the right to control his or her own mental and emotional brain processes against the desires of external agents, especially the state, to control or access them. it is largely reflective of the value of neuroprivacy, the idea that privacy rights extend to a citizen’s brain, and that if privacy has any meaning at all, it must mean one’s right to protect the contents of one’s brain (i.e., one’s thoughts, emotions, and other subjective states). these terms are relatively recent concepts, reactions to the development of neurotechnologies that are beginning to allow unprecedented access to the inner workings of the brain. the values they reflect, however, have a long pedigree.”

Walsh, C.. (2014). Beyond religious freedom: Psychedelics and cognitive liberty. In Prohibition, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights: Regulating Traditional Drug Use

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-40957-8_11
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“This chapter will examine the blurred boundaries between the sacred and the secular when it comes to psychedelic experiences, and the inevitable ensuing arbitrariness involved in protecting some such rituals and not others. it will put forth the argument that there is a need to move beyond simply seeking exemptions from drug prohibition in the name of religious freedom; rather, there should be a broader right to ingest psychedelics as an aspect of cognitive liberty. cognitive liberty is the right to control one’s own consciousness. it is a concept that equates to freedom of thought, a right protected internationally by the universal declaration of human rights and enforceable in europe through article 9 of the european convention of human rights.”

White, A. E.. (2010). The lie of fMRI: An examination of the ethics of a market in lie detection using functional magnetic resonance imaging. HEC Forum

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s10730-010-9141-6
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“In this paper, i argue that companies who use functional magnetic resonance imaging (fmri) scans for lie detection encounter the same basic ethical stumbling blocks as commercial companies that market traditional polygraphs. markets in traditional voluntary polygraphs are common and fail to elicit much uproar among ethicists. thus, for consistency, if markets in polygraphs are ethically unproblematic, markets using fmris for lie detection are equally as acceptable. furthermore, while i acknowledge two substantial differences between the ethical concerns involving polygraphs and fmri lie detection, i argue that these concerns can be overcome and do not lead to the conclusion that markets in fmri lie detection are ethically dubious. it is my conclusion that voluntary markets in fmri lie detection can be justified by consumer autonomy and should be allowed to persist. © 2010 springer science+business media b.v.”

Xu, H., & Dinev, T.. (2012). The security-liberty balance: Individuals’ attitudes towards internet government surveillance. Electronic Government

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1504/EG.2012.044778
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“In the security-liberty balance, individuals would weigh the benefits of government surveillance against what the cost would be to our civil liberties. drawing on social cognitive theory (sct), this study empirically operationalises and tests citizens’ attitudes towards internet government surveillance and discusses predictors of these attitudes that help elicit the notion of security-liberty balance through a survey study. we propose that individuals’ internet self-efficacy and social awareness affect perceived need for government surveillance and government intrusion concerns. the study presents empirically tested relationships which are important for informing the debate and developing well-balanced policies of security protection and civil liberties. copyright © 2012 inderscience enterprises ltd.”

Davies, W.. (2017). Elite Power under Advanced Neoliberalism. Theory, Culture & Society

, 34(5–6), 227–250.
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0263276417715072
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“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.”

Foster, J. B., & Holleman, H.. (2010). The Financial Power Elite. Monthly Review

, 62(1), 1.
Plain numerical DOI: 10.14452/MR-062-01-2010-05_1
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“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.”

Iyer, R., Koleva, S., Graham, J., Ditto, P., & Haidt, J.. (2012). Understanding libertarian morality: The psychological dispositions of self-identified libertarians. PLoS ONE

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0042366
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“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.”

Boire, R.. (2000). On Cognitive Liberty. In Journal of Cognitive Liberties

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/00207144.2013.753820
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Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2017). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Life Sciences, Society and Policy

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1186/s40504-017-0050-1
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Shanker, S. G.. (2009). Three concepts of liberty. In After Cognitivism: A Reassessment of Cognitive Science and Philosophy

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9992-2_13
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Rindermann, H.. (2012). Intellectual classes, technological progress and economic development: The rise of cognitive capitalism. Personality and Individual Differences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.07.001
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“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.”

SENTENTIA, W.. (2006). Neuroethical Considerations: Cognitive Liberty and Converging Technologies for Improving Human Cognition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1196/annals.1305.014
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“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.”

Desai, A. C.. (2011). Libertarian Paternalism, Externalities, and the “Spirit of Liberty”: How Thaler and Sunstein Are Nudging Us toward an “Overlapping Consensus”. Law and Social Inquiry, 36(1), 263–295.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-4469.2010.01231.x
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“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.{’’}.”

Pustilnik, A. C.. (2012). Neurotechnologies at the intersection of criminal procedure and constitutional law. In The Constitution and the Future of Criminal Justice in America

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139108034.011
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“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.”

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Liberticide = “destruction of liberty”. adjective liberticidal = “destructive of liberty”. after the French noun combining form liberticide: liberté, liberty + -i- + -cide, killing. Latin etymology: libertas, liberty + caedere, to kill (cf. tyrannicide & regicide).

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Liberticide = “destruction of liberty”.
adjective liberticidal = “destructive of liberty”.
after the French noun combining form liberticide:
liberté, liberty + -i- + -cide, killing.
Latin etymology:
libertas, liberty + caedere, to kill (cf. tyrannicide & regicide).