Mala Chatterjee (Columbia Law School) has posted From Extended Personality to Extended Minds: Toward an Expanded Theory of Legal Personality (Oxford Studies in Private Law Theory: Volume IV (forthcoming 2026)) on SSRN. Here is the abstract:
This chapter argues that the extended personality doctrine implicates—and so ought to incorporate—a class of external objects that are not presently contemplated by legal doctrine or scholarship, but which can be functionally integrated with our cognitive systems in much the same way that clothing or eyeglasses are integrated with our bodies. In their seminal 1998 article The Extended Mind, the philosophers of mind David Chalmers and Andy Clark famously called attention to this class of objects and their functional entwinement with our cognition. Borrowing the iconic thought experiment at the heart of Chalmers’ and Clark’s article, this chapter unearths the ways in which these cognition-extending objects ultimately implicate a wide range of legally-protected personal interests. It will emerge that a) because the objects integrated with our cognitive systems functionally constitute extensions of our bodies, unlawful actions that damage or interfere with such objects ought to be regarded as bodily violations—akin to battery or false imprisonment—rather than merely violations of property; and b) because the information contained in these mind-extending objects effectively constitutes the contents of our minds, unauthorized actions that access, use, or appropriate such information ought to be regarded as cognitive invasions—akin to coercion, compelled speech, or self-incrimination—rather than merely as invasions of privacy. The chapter then explores how this expanded vision of extended personality might be reflected across our legal institutions and incorporated into our legal rights, laying the groundwork for a general and substantive theory of legal personality.
Highly recommended.