This session will be part of &lsquo\;Truth\, Democracy\, and Misinformation&rsquo\;\, the 20206 Symposium of the Australian Association for Professional and Applied Ethics.
\nThe AAAPE exists to promote awareness of applied ethics and foster relationships between practitioners and academics.
\nThe event will be held on online. The event is free for members and ticketed for non-members. More information\, including the full program\, schedule\, and registration is available at: https://events.humanitix.com/aapae-misinformation-workshop
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Abstract:
The central claim of this presentation is that the democratic harm of misinformation does not lie only in the circulation of false or misleading content. It also lies in the infrastructural transformation of the conditions under which citizens form beliefs\, assign trust\, recognise expertise\, deliberate with others\, and participate in collective decision-making. For this reason\, democratic theory requires not only protections for freedom of expression\, but also a more explicit normative framework for safeguarding mental autonomy and epistemic self-government. I propose to conceptualise this framework through the principle of habeas mentem\, understood as a contemporary counterpart to habeas corpus.
\nThe starting point of the paper is the relationship between truth\, trust\, and democratic legitimacy. Democratic politics presupposes citizens who are able to access reliable information\, contest public claims\, evaluate reasons\, and revise their judgements in light of evidence. Yet digital communication increasingly takes place within environments structured by algorithmic curation\, platform incentives\, data extraction\, behavioural profiling\, and personalised persuasion. In such contexts\, misinformation and disinformation do not merely distort isolated opinions. They can alter the epistemic and affective conditions under which citizens form beliefs\, assign credibility\, and participate in public deliberation. The harm is thus not only cognitive\, but also political. It concerns the erosion of the conditions that allow citizens to judge\, deliberate\, and act together as members of a democratic community.
\nAgainst this background\, the paper proposes habeas mentem as a regulative principle for democratic societies confronted with misinformation\, disinformation\, and epistemic manipulation. Historically\, habeas corpus protected individuals against arbitrary detention by affirming that political authority could not dispose of the body without public justification. By analogy\, habeas mentem affirms that political\, technological\, and commercial powers should not be allowed to capture\, manipulate\, or bypass the conditions of mental self-determination. This does not imply a right to be free from all influence. Democratic communication necessarily involves persuasion\, rhetoric\, disagreement\, and contestation. The relevant distinction is between forms of public persuasion that remain answerable to reasons and forms of manipulation that exploit opacity\, asymmetry\, profiling\, or cognitive vulnerability in order to circumvent reflective agency.
\nThe presentation concludes by outlining the institutional implications of this principle. These include digital rights against manipulative profiling\, political microtargeting\, synthetic propaganda\, and behavioural steering. They also include transparency duties for algorithmic curation\, public repositories for targeted political messages\, independent auditing of recommender systems\, safeguards against biometric and affective surveillance\, and restrictions on the political use of cognitive or neural data. More broadly\, the protection of mental autonomy requires a separation of digital power\, supported by antitrust measures against dominant platforms\, limits on the integration of data extraction\, content distribution\, advertising\, and AI infrastructures\, as well as democratic oversight.
\nThe paper argues that responding to misinformation requires a shift from a narrow concern with false content to a broader account of communicative and epistemic self-government. Citizens must be protected not only in their capacity to speak\, but also in their capacity to think\, judge\, trust\, disagree\, and participate in democratic life.
\nAbout the Author:
\nGabriele Giacomini is Assistant Professor at the University of Udine and Scientific Coordinator of the Master&rsquo\;s programme in Philosophy of the Digital and Artificial Intelligence. His research lies at the intersection of political theory\, digital media\, and the social sciences\, with a particular focus on the political and societal implications of digital technologies and artificial intelligence. He holds a PhD in Neuroscience from Vita-Salute San Raffaele University in Milan and the IUSS University School for Advanced Studies in Pavia\, and he has held research positions at the Center for Advanced Studies Southeast Europe in Rijeka\, Croatia\, and at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona\, Spain. His publications include "The Arduous Road to Revolution. Resisting Authoritarian Regimes in the Digital Communication Age" (Mimesis International\, 2022).
ORGANIZER;CN=Larelle Bossi;CN=Hugh Breakey;CN=Jacqueline Boaks: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR