Social Sciences in China (Chinese Edition)

No. 10, 2025

Construction of a Human-Machine Joint Responsibility Paradigm for Brain-Computer Interface Ethics

(Abstract)

Li Zhen

Breakthroughs in brain-computer interface (BCI) technology are undermining the philosophical foundations of traditional moral responsibility. The three foundational conditions for traditional moral responsibility—human subjectivity, control, and cognition—are systematically challenged in the context of BCI. Subjectivity diminishes with brain-machine integration, transforming the agent from a biological individual into a neuro-technological hybrid. Control becomes restructured distributionally, disrupting the linear causal chain between intention and action and introducing multi-factor overdetermination. Cognitive processes become deeply integrated with technological systems, embedding perception, decision-making, and execution within a closed loop human-machine interaction. Although distributed moral responsibility theory breaks from the traditional individualist paradigm, it still struggles to address the technological reframing of agency introduced by neural interfaces. Consequently, BCI ethics must establish a paradigm of human-machine joint responsibility grounded in extended agency. This paradigm acknowledges the expanded boundary of responsibility introduced by technology without diminishing the primacy of human agency in ethical order.