Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-t5tsf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-17T14:18:27.220Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Is Having Your Computer Compromised a Personal Assault? The Ethics of Extended Cognition

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 December 2016

J. ADAM CARTER  and
S. ORESTIS PALERMOS
J. ADAM CARTER
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGHj.adam.carter@ed.ac.uk
S. ORESTIS PALERMOS
Affiliation:
UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGHs.o.palermos@ed.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Philosophy of mind and cognitive science (e.g., Clark and Chalmers 1998; Clark 2010; Palermos 2014) have recently become increasingly receptive to the hypothesis of extended cognition, according to which external artifacts such as our laptops and smartphones can—under appropriate circumstances—feature as material realizers of a person's cognitive processes. We argue that, to the extent that the hypothesis of extended cognition is correct, our legal and ethical theorizing and practice must be updated by broadening our conception of personal assault so as to include intentional harm toward gadgets that have been appropriately integrated. We next situate the theoretical case for extended personal assault within the context of some recent ethical and legal cases and close with critical discussion.

Keywords

extended cognitionapplied ethicstechnologyprivacypersonal assault
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 2 , Issue 4 , Winter 2016 , pp. 542 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adams, F., and Aizawa, K.. (2001) ‘The Bounds of Cognition’. Philosophical Psychology, 14, 43–64.Google Scholar
Adams, F., and Aizawa, K.. (2008) The Bounds of Cognition. New York: John Wiley.Google Scholar
Adams, F., and Aizawa, K.. (2010) ‘The Value of Cognitivism in Thinking about Extended Cognition’. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/.Google Scholar
Baker, L. R. (2000) Persons and Bodies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Block, N. (1980) ‘Troubles with Functionalism’. In Block, Ned (ed.), Readings in the Philosophy of Psychology, vol. 1 and 2 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), 63–102.Google Scholar
Bostrom, N., and Sandberg, A.. (2009) ‘Cognitive Enhancement: Methods, Ethics, Regulatory Challenges’. Science and Engineering Ethics, 15, 311–41.Google Scholar
Bostrom, N., and Savulescu, J.. (2009) ‘Human Enhancement Ethics: The State of the Debate’. In Bostrom, N. and Savulescu, J. (eds.), Human Enhancement (Oxford: Oxford University Press), 1–22.Google Scholar
Brooks, R. (1991a) ‘Intelligence without Representation’. Artificial Intelligence, 47, 139–59.Google Scholar
Brooks, R. (1991b) ‘Intelligence without Reason’. Proceedings of 12th International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 569–95.Google Scholar
Buller, D. J. (2005) Adapting Minds. Evolutionary Psychology and the Persistent Quest for Human Nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Chemero, A. (2009) Radical Embodied Cognitive Science. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Christman, J. (2015) ‘Autonomy in Moral and Political Philosophy’. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2015/entries/autonomy-moral/.Google Scholar
Clark, A., and Chalmers, D.. (1998) ‘The Extended Mind’. Analysis, 58, 7–19.Google Scholar
Clark, A. (1997) Being There: Putting Mind, Body, and World Together Again. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Clark, A. (2008) Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Clark, A. (2009) ‘Spreading the Joy? Why the Machinery of Consciousness is (Probably) Still in the Head’. Mind, 118, 963–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A. (2010) ‘Memento's Revenge: The Extended Mind Extended’. In Menary, Richard (ed.), The Extended Mind (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 43–66.Google Scholar
Clark, A., and Chalmers, D.. (1998) ‘The Extended Mind’. Analysis, 58, 7–19.Google Scholar
Clowes, R. W. (2012) ‘Hybrid Memory, Cognitive Technology and Self’. Proceedings of the 5th AISB Symposium on Computing and Philosophy, 4–13.Google Scholar
Cohen, G.A. (1995) Self-Ownership, Freedom and Equality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Fagan v. Metropolitan Police Commissioner . (1969) Q.B.1 439.Google Scholar
Froese, T., Gershenson, C., and Rosenblueth, D. A.. (2013) ‘The Dynamically Extended Mind’. Available at: http://arxiv.org/abs/1305.1958.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gray, C. H., ed. (1995) The Cyborg Handbook. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Heersmink, R. (2015) ‘Extended Mind and Cognitive Enhancement: Moral Aspects of Cognitive Artifacts’. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences, doi:10.1007/s11097-015-9448-5.Google Scholar
Heersmink, R. (2016a) ‘Distributed Selves: Personal Identity and Extended Memory Systems. Synthese, doi:10.1007/s11229-016-1102-4.Google Scholar
Heersmink, R. (2016b) ‘Distributed Cognition and Distributed Morality: Agency, Artifacts and Systems’. Science and Engineering Ethics, doi:10.1007/s11948-016-9802-1.Google Scholar
Hoven, E., Cas, C., and Whittaker, S.. (2012) ‘Introduction to this Special Issue on Designing for Personal Memories: Past, Present, and Future’. Human-Computer Interaction, 27, 1–12.Google Scholar
Howard-Snyder, F. (2011) ‘Doing vs. Allowing Harm’. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/.Google Scholar
Hutchins, E. (1995) Cognition in the Wild. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kiverstein, J., and Farina, M.. (2012) ‘Do Sensory Substitution Devices Extend the Conscious Mind?’ In Paglieri, F. (ed.), Consciousness in Interaction: The Role of the Natural and Social Context in Shaping Consciousness (Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing), 19–40.Google Scholar
Levin, Janet. (2013) ‘Functionalism’. In Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Available at: http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2013/entries/functionalism/.Google Scholar
Lynch, M. (2016) The Internet of Us. New York: Liveright Publishing.Google Scholar
Menary, R. (2006) ‘Attacking the Bounds of Cognition’. Philosophical Psychology, 19, 329–44.Google Scholar
Menary, R. (2007) Cognitive Integration: Mind and Cognition Unbound. Basingstoke: Palgrave McMillan.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miah, A., and Rich, E.. (2008) The Medicalization of Cyberspace. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
O'Hara, K., Tufflied, M. M., and Shadbolt, N.. (2008) ‘Lifelogging: Privacy and Empowerment with Memories for Life’. Identity in the Information Society, 1, 155–72.Google Scholar
Olson, E. (2011) ‘The Extended Self’. Minds and Machines, 21, special issue: The Construction of Personal Identities Online, 481–95.Google Scholar
Palermos, S. O. (2014) ‘Loops, Constitution, and Cognitive Extension’. Cognitive Systems Research, 27, 25–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robb, K. (1994) Literacy and Paideia in Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Rupert, D. R. (2004) ‘Challenges to the Hypothesis of Extended Cognition’. Journal of Philosophy, 101, 389–428.Google Scholar
Rupert, D. R. (2009) Cognitive Systems and the Extended Mind. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Serra, L. (2011) “No hi ha blancs ni negres, tots som taronges”. ara.cat. Available at: http://www.ara.cat/societat/No-blancs-negres-totstaronges_0_411558847.html.Google Scholar
Sprevak, M. (2009) ‘Extended Cognition and Functionalism’. Journal of Philosophy, 106, 503–27.Google Scholar
Sutton, J. (2008) ‘Between Individual and Collective Memory: Coordination, Interaction, Distribution’. Social Research, 75, 23–48.Google Scholar
Sutton, J., Barnier, A., Harris, C., and Wilson, R.. (2008) ‘A Conceptual and Empirical Framework for the Social Distribution of Cognition: The Case of Memory’. Cognitive Systems Research, 9, 35–51.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. (1989) Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Taylor, C. (1991) The Ethics of Authenticity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Theiner, G. (2011) Res Cogitans Extensa: A Philosophical Defense of the Extended Mind Thesis. Bern, Switzerland: Peter Lang, Europäischer Verlag der Wissenschaften.Google Scholar
Theiner, G., Allen, C., and Goldstone, R.. (2010) ‘Recognizing Group Cognition’. Cognitive Systems Research, 11, 378–95.Google Scholar
Tollefsen, D., and Dale, R.. (2011) ‘Naturalizing Joint Action: A Process-Based Approach’. Philosophical Psychology, 25, 385–407.Google Scholar
United States v. Rabinowitz . (1950) 339 U.S. 56, 70 S. Ct. 430, 94 L. Ed. 653.Google Scholar
Varela, F., Thompson, E., and Rosch, E.. (1991) The Embodied Mind: Cognitive Science and Human Experience. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Wegner, M., Giuliano, T., and Hertel, P.. (1985) ‘Cognitive Interdependence in Close Relationships’. In Ickes, W. J. (ed.), Compatible and Incompatible Relationships (New York: Springer Verlag), 253–76.Google Scholar
Weiskopf, D. (2008) ‘Patrolling the Mind's Boundaries’. Erkenntnis, 68, 265–76.Google Scholar
Wheeler, M. (2005) Reconstructing the Cognitive World. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wheeler, M (2010) ‘In Defense of Extended Functionalism’. In Menary, R. (ed.), The Extended Mind. Life and Mind Series: Philosophical Issues in Biology and Psychology (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 245–70.Google Scholar
Wilson, R. A. (2000) ‘The Mind Beyond Itself’. In Sperber, D. (ed.), Metarepresentations: A Multidisciplinary Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press), 31–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilson, R. (2004) Boundaries of the Mind: The Individual in the Fragile Sciences: Cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar