Neurorights in Chile:

The
Philosophical
Debate

MARCH 17 - 19, 2021

Broadcast on UAH Digital TV

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The workshop “Neurorights in Chile: The Philosophical Debate”, organized by the Chilean Senate’s Challenges of the Future (‘Desafíos del Futuro’) Committee, Prof. Rafael Yuste, from Columbia University, and the Neuroethics Group at Universidad Alberto Hurtado, and supported by Columbia Global Centers | Santiago, was held online on March 17-19, 2021.

The workshop discussed the Chilean Senate’s Constitutional Reform Bill (Bulletin 13.827-19) and the Neuroprotection Bill of Law (Bulletin 13.828-19). These two bills were elaborated during the last year by the Chilean Senate’s Committee, led by Senator Guido Girardi, with the support of Chile's Government, Chile’s Academy of Science, all major universities in Chile, the Morningside Group Neuroethics Task Force and Columbia University’s Neurorights Initiative.

Both bills were approved by the Senate Committee on October 30th and then by the Chilean Senate on December 16th 2020. Following the original proposal advanced by the Morningside Group, the Bills introduce five key neurorights: The Right to Personal Identity, The Right to Free-Will, The Right to Mental Privacy, The Right to Equal Access to Mental Augmentation and The Right to Protection from Algorithmic Bias.

The workshop brought together main neuroethics experts on each of these subjects in order to constructively discuss the next steps in the establishment of neurorights, including issues related to their implementation in Chile and abroad, and the possibility that they serve as a stepping stone for the new Chilean Constitution and for a new International Declaration of Human Rights.

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Watch Workshop

March 17

March 18

March 19

Program

  • March 17

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    Welcome

    Eduardo Silva SJ - Guido Girardi - Rafael Yuste

    10:00 - 10:20 (GMT - 3)

  • Opening Session:

    Neurorights: Present and Future

    Rafael Yuste - Pedro Maldonado - Abel Wajnerman Paz - Joseph J. Fins
    Moderator: Francisco Pereira

    10:30 - 11:20 (GMT - 3)

  • Session A

    Autonomy and Agency

    Sara Goering - Pim Haselager
    Moderator: Francisco Pereira

    11:30 - 12:20 (GMT - 3)

  • Session B

    Personal Identity, Psychological Continuity and Mental Integrity

    Fabrice Jotterand – Andrea Lavazza
    Moderator: Francisco Pereira

    12:30 - 13:20 (GMT - 3)

  • March 18

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  • Session C

    Bias and Discrimination

    Alejandro Jofré - Philipp Kellmeyer - Mariano Sigman
    Moderator: Abel Wajnerman Paz

    10:30 - 11:20 (GMT - 3)

  • Session D

    Mental Augmentation and Human Identity

    Inmaculada de Melo-Martín - Arleen Salles - Luca Valera - Anna Wexler
    Moderator: Abel Wajnerman Paz

    11:30 - 12:20 (GMT - 3)

  • Session E

    Mental privacy

    Jack Gallant - Marcello Ienca
    Moderator: Abel Wajnerman Paz

    12:30 - 13:20 (GMT - 3)

  • March 19

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  • Closing Session:

    Neurorights as a stepping stone for a new International Declaration of Human Rights

    Ciro Colombara - Eduardo Aldunate - Allan McCay - Jared Genser
    Moderator: Rafael Yuste

    10:30 - 12:00 (GMT - 3)

Speakers

Aldunate Eduardo

Lawyer and professor of Constitutional Law at the Pontifical Catholic University of Valparaiso. He studied law at the School of Law of the Faculty of Legal and Social Sciences of the Catholic University of Valparaiso. He is currently a professor at the School and was its Director between 2004 - and 2007. He has a doctorate in law from the University of Saarland (1997). He was director of the Judicial Academy of Chile between 2011 and 2018.

Colombara Ciro

Lawyer (Catholic University of Chile, 1993) and Founding Partner of Rivadeneira Colombara Zegers Law Firm (RCZ). Founder and Director of Fundación Pro Bono and member of the Executive Committee of the Pro Bono Network of the Americas. He has more than 25 years of experience in complex litigation, both national and international. He has developed his career mainly in sophisticated disputes involving criminal law, civil law, public law, international law and human rights. He represents Roxin Alliance in Chile, a world network of law firm specializing in business crime litigation.

Fins Joseph

Professor of Medical Ethics and Chief of the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College where he also serves as Professor of Medicine (with Tenure), Professor of Public Health and Professor of Medicine in Psychiatry.
Dr. Fins is an elected Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), was elected a Fellow of The American Academy of Arts & Sciences in 2012 and was elected in 2020 to serve as President-Elect of the International Neuroethics Society.
His current scholarly interests include ethical and policy issues in brain injury and disorders of consciousness, palliative care, research ethics in neurology and psychiatry, medical education and methods of ethics case consultation.

Gallant Jack

Chancellor’s Professor of Psychology at the University of California at Berkeley, and he is affiliated with several other departments and graduate programs at UCB (EECS, Bioengineering, Neuroscience, Biophysics, Vision Science). He received his Ph.D. from Yale University, and he did post-doctoral work at the California Institute of Technology and Washington University Medical School.
His current research program focuses on computational modeling and mapping of human brain activity under a wide variety of naturalistic conditions.

Genser Jared

International human rights lawyer. He is Managing Director of Perseus Strategies, Special Advisor on the Responsibility to Protect to the Organization of American States, and an Adjunct Professor of Law at Georgetown University Law Center. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Raoul Wallenberg Center for Human Rights and was an Associate of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University from 2014-2016. He was a recipient of the American Bar Association’s International Human Rights Award.

Girardi Guido

Surgeon and politician of the Party for Democracy (Chile). Senator for the 7th Circumscription, Metropolitan Region, period 2014-2022. Senator for the 7th Circumscription Santiago Poniente, Metropolitan Region, period 2006-2014 and 2014 to 2018. Deputy for the 18th District, Metropolitan Region, for three consecutive periods between 1994 and 2006. President of the Senate from March 15, 2011 to March 20, 2012, when he founded, together with Chilean universities and the Academy of Sciences, the Future Congress: one of the most relevant scientific dissemination events worldwide, with Nature and Science as media partners. He is Vice President of the Senate from March 22, 2017 to March 11, 2018.

Sara Goering

Professor of the Ethics and Disability Studies Program at the University of Washington. She is an adjunct in the Department of Bioethics and Humanities. She co-chairs the ethics group at the Center for Neurotechnology at the University of Washington. She teaches courses in bioethics, ethics, disability philosophy, feminist philosophy and medical philosophy.
Her research is focused on studying the effects of neural technology on personal identity, agency and autonomy, as well as helping to create better-informed ethical guidelines and education for neuroscientists and neural engineers.

Haselager Pim

Associate Professor at the dpt. of Artificial Intelligence and the Donders Institute for the Brain, Cognition and Behaviour at Radboud University in Nijmegen, Netherlands. PhD from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Netherlands. He specializes in the ethical and societal implications of research on brain-computer interfacing and brain stimulation.

Ienca Marcello

Senior researcher at the Laboratory of Ethics and Health Policy of the Department of Health Sciences and Technology of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zurich). His research focuses on ethics and governance of biomedical data, ethical development of artificial intelligence (AI), neuroethics and responsible innovation of emerging technologies at the human-machine interface.

Jofré Alejandro

Vice-Chancellor of the University of Chile. Civil Mathematical Engineer from the University of Chile and a PhD in Applied Mathematics from the University of Pau, France. He is a Professor at the University of Chile. He has held the positions of Director and Deputy Director of the Center for Mathematical Modeling at the University of Chile. His areas of research are optimization, stochastic optimization, game theory, economic equilibrium and electricity markets.

Jotterand Fabrice

Professor of Bioethics and Medical Humanities and Director of the Graduate Bioethics Program at the Medical College of Winsconsin. He has a second appointment as a principal investigator at the Institute of Biomedical Ethics at the University of Basel, Switzerland. His research focuses on ethical issues in psychiatry and mental health and in particular on the use of neurotechnologies in psychiatry.

Kellmeyer Philipp

Neurologist at the University Medical Center Freiburg, where he heads the Laboratory of Neuroethics and Ethics of AI in the Department of Neurosurgery.
As a neuroscientist he works in the fields of neuroimaging and translational neurotechnology, in particular the clinical application of brain-computer interfaces based on artificial intelligence. In his research on neuroethics he works on the ethical, legal, social and political challenges of neurotechnologies, large data and artificial intelligence in medicine and research. He is part of the Board of the International Society of Neuroethics.

Lavazza Andrea

Senior research fellow at Centro Universitario Internazionale, Arezzo, Italy, and adjunct professor of Neuroethics at University of Pavia, Italy. His main area of research is neuroethics. In this field, he has written on human enhancement, cognitive privacy, memory manipulation, and cerebral organoids. His general interests are focused on moral philosophy, free will, and law at the intersection with cognitive sciences. He is working on naturalism and its relations with other kinds of causation and explanation in philosophy of mind and philosophical anthropology. He has published over 80 papers and 11 books both as author and editor.

Maldonado Pedro

Principal Investigator of the Millennium Institute for Neuroscience Biomedicine (BNI), Chile, and Director of the Department of Neuroscience. He is a Founding Member of the Chilean Society of Neuroscience and a professor at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Chile. He has a degree in Biological Sciences and a Master's Degree in Physiological Sciences from the University of Chile and a PhD in Sciences from the University of Pennsylvania. He carried out his postdoctoral studies at the Neuroscience Center of the University of California, Davis.

McCay Allan

Dr. Allan McCay is Deputy Director of The Sydney Institute of Criminology, and Adjunct Lecturer at the University of Sydney Law School. He also teaches at the University of Sydney Foundation Program, and is an Affiliate Member of the Centre for Agency, Values and Ethics at Macquarie University. His philosophical interests relate to free will and punishment, and ethical issues emerging from neuroscience, neurotechnology, and artificial intelligence. In relation to legal practice, he is interested in behavioural legal ethics and the future of legal work. A large section of his research focusses on the criminal law.

Melo-Martin Inmaculada

Professor of Medical Ethics in the Division of Medical Ethics at Weill Cornell Medical College. She holds a PhD in philosophy and a master's degree in molecular biology. Her research interests include bioethics and the philosophy of science. He has been especially concerned with drawing attention to the importance of science in understanding our ethical judgments; the importance of ethics in evaluating new scientific and technological advances and proposing public policy; and the importance of addressing the social and political context in evaluating science and technology.

Salles Arleen

Senior Researcher at the Center for Research Ethics and Bioethics (CRB) at Uppsala University and Director of the Neuroethics Program at CIF (Centro de Investigaciones Filosoficas) in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Researcher and task leader in the Responsible Research and Innovation Work Package of the EU-flagship Human Brain Project. Board member of the International Neuroethics Society and member of the International Brain Initiative’s Neuroethics Workgroup. She received her M.A and Ph.D in philosophy from SUNY Buffalo, USA.

Sigman Mariano

Associate Professor at Torcuato Di Tella University and Senior Researcher at CONICET (Argentina). He founded the Laboratory of Integrative Neuroscience at the University of Buenos Aires, an interdisciplinary group that has developed an empirical and theoretical approach to decision making. Recently, he has focused on understanding how current knowledge of the brain and mind can serve to improve educational practice. He is the director of the "Decision Making" program of the EU Human Brain Project. He has a degree in Physics from the University of Buenos Aires (1997), a PhD in Neuroscience (Phd) from Rockefeller University (New York) and a post-doctoral degree in Cognitive Science (2002-2005) from the College de France (Paris).

Silva Eduardo

Jesuit priest and Rector of the Alberto Hurtado University (UAH) since 2016. He has worked at UAH since its foundation and has held the position of Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities since 2006. He has a PhD in Theology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where he is currently an associate professor of the Faculty of Theology. His lines of research are phenomenology and contemporary hermeneutics, theological anthropology and fundamental theology, around which he has published numerous articles.

Valera Luca

Associate Professor of Philosophy and Director of the Bioethics Center of the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. He was Professor of Medical Anthropology at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Roma and of Human Ecology and Sustainability at the Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma. He studied Philosophy at the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore di Milano. He holds a PhD in Bioethics and Philosophy from the Università Campus Bio-Medico di Roma.

Wajnerman Abel

Assistant Professor of the Department of Philosophy at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado (Chile). Director of the Neuroethics Research Group at the same university. PhD. in Philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires (2015), and postdoctoral fellow of CONICET (2015-2017) and FONDECYT (2018-2021). His main areas of interest are the Philosophy of Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroethics. He focuses on epistemic and conceptual issues related to neural coding, computing and information processing, and their neuroethical implications regarding mental privacy, psychological integrity and autonomy.

Wexler Anna

Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. She studies the ethical, legal, and social issues surrounding emerging technology, with a particular focus on do-it-yourself medicine and direct-to-consumer health technology.

Yuste Rafael

Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University and Director of the Center for Neurotechnology at the same university. He led the group of scientists that inspired the United States BRAIN Initiative, a collaborative, public-private research initiative announced by the Obama administration in 2013, with the goal of supporting the development and application of innovative technologies that can create a dynamic understanding of brain function and disorders. He also helped form the international Brain Initiative (IBI) in 2017, which gathers current and emerging Brain Research Initiatives from Australia, Japan, Korea, Europe, United States of America, China and Canada.

Organizing Committee

Guido Girardi

Guido Girardi

Surgeon and politician, member of the Party for Democracy (Chile). Senator for the 7th Circumscription, Metropolitan Region, period 2014-2022. Senator for the 7th Circumscription, Santiago Poniente, Metropolitan Region, period 2006-2014 and 2014-2018. Deputy for the 18th District, Metropolitan Region, for three consecutive periods between 1994 and 2006. President of the Senate from 2011 to 2012 and Vice President of the Senate from 2017 to 2018.

Rafael Yuste

Rafael Yuste

Professor of Biological Sciences at Columbia University and Director of the Center for Neurotechnology at the same university. He led the group of scientists that inspired the United States Brain Initiative, announced by President Barack Obama in 2013, and helped form the International Brain Initiative (IBI) in 2017.

Eduardo Silva Arévalo S.J.

Eduardo Silva Arévalo S.J.

Jesuit priest and Rector of the Alberto Hurtado University (UAH) since 2016. He has worked at UAH since its foundation and was Dean of the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities. He has a PhD in Theology from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, where he currently serves as an associate professor of the Faculty of Theology.

Roberto Rubio

Roberto Rubio

Associate Professor at the Alberto Hurtado University (Chile), where he currently heads the Department of Philosophy. He is a Doctor of Philosophy (Ludwig- Alberts Universität Freiburg, 2005). Since 2020 he is Director of the Center for Media Studies at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado. His areas of specialization are: Phenomenology, Hermeneutics, Image Studies and Philosophy of Media.

Abel Wajnerman Paz

Abel Wajnerman Paz

Assistant Professor of the Department of Philosophy at the Alberto Hurtado University (Chile), where he leads the Neuroethics group. He obtained his PhD in philosophy from the University of Buenos Aires (2015), and was a postdoctoral fellow of CONICET (2015-2017) and FONDECYT (2018-2021). His main areas of interest are the Philosophy of Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroethics.

MARCH 17 - 19, 2021

Neurorights in Chile:

The
Philosophical
Debate

Registration

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