Self-lie detection
new challenges for moral neuroenhancement
pp. 43-52
in: Humberto Mesones Arroyo (ed), Psychiatry and neuroscience update, Berlin, Springer, 2019Abstract
First invented in 1921, polygraph, also known as the lie detector, is a machine that has been used mainly in criminal trials, but not without controversy. In the past few years, however, and thanks to the recent interest in detecting lies through neuroimage analysis methods, like functional MRI-based lie detection, the government and public confidence in such devices' results was found to have increased: examples include national security, job recruitment procedures, and divorce disputes. However, much less attention has been paid to detection of self-lies. The reasons are several and discussed in this paper. In the conclusions I defend that new phenomenological and neuropsychological approaches to inauthentic experiences might provide applicable keys for the understanding and detection of self-lies. Besides, I study the potential applications of self-lie detectors not only for criminal, mercantile, or therapeutic purposes but also to enhance moral life. Some ethical horizons and controversies are considered in the last part of this work: among the most important ones, first, the problem of self-lie detection in the context of postmodern notion of "post-truth" and, second, the dilemma between truth and free will – the second being the preferred option for Western postmodern taste. Is there a place for self-lie detectors in the virtual age? Or on the contrary, could it be used to help reversing such cultural trending?