Treatment for Crime Philosophical Essays on Neurointerventions in Criminal Justice

by Birks, David; Douglas, Thomas

• ISBN13: 9780198758617
• ISBN10: 0198758618
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2018-12-25
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

Preventing recidivism is one of the aims of criminal justice, yet existing means of pursuing this aim are often poorly effective, highly restrictive of basic freedoms, and significantly harmful. Incarceration, for example, tends to be disruptive of personal relationships and careers, detrimental to physical and mental health, restrictive of freedom of movement, and rarely more than modestly effective at preventing recidivism. Crime-preventing neurointerventions (CPNs) are increasingly being advocated, and there is a growing use of testosterone-lowering agents to prevent recidivism in sexual offenders, and strong political and scientific interest in developing pharmaceutical treatments for psychopathy and anti-social behaviour. Future neuroscientific advances could yield further CPNs; we could ultimately have at our disposal a range of drugs capable of suppressing violent aggression and it is not difficult to imagine possible applications of such drugs in crime prevention.

Neurointerventions hold out the promise of preventing recidivism in ways that are both more effective, and more humane. But should neurointerventions be used in crime prevention? And may the state ever permissibly impose CPNs as part of the criminal justice process, either unconditionally, or as a condition of parole or early release? The use of CPNs raises several ethical concerns, as they could be highly intrusive and may threaten fundamental human values, such as bodily integrity and freedom of thought. In the first book-length treatment of this topic, Treatment for Crime, brings together original contributions from internationally renowned moral and political philosophers to address these questions and consider the possible issues, recognizing how humanity has a track record of misguided, harmful and unwarrantedly coercive use of neurotechnological 'solutions' to criminality.

The Engaging Philosophy series is a new forum for collective philosophical engagement with controversial issues in contemporary society.

Author Biography

David Birks is a Departmental Lecturer in Political Theory at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford, and an Early Career Research Fellow at the Oxford Research Centre for the Humanities (TORCH), University of Oxford. He was previously a Junior Research Fellow at Kellogg College, Oxford, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Experimental Medicine, University of Kiel. His research focuses on issues such as paternalism, perfectionism, punishment, and public reason.

Thomas Douglas is currently a Senior Research Fellow based in the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics and the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Oxford, and an Editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics. His research lies in practical and normative ethics and currently focuses on the moral desirability of using medical interventions for non-medical purposes such as cognitive enhancement, behaviour modification, criminal rehabilitation, and moral improvement. He has also written on moral worth, compensatory justice, moral status, and reproductive ethics.

Table of Contents

Part One: Setting the Scene
1. Biological Interventions for Crime Prevention, Christopher Chew, Thomas Douglas, and Nadira Faber
2. Crime-Preventing Neurointerventions and the Law: Learning from Anti-Libidinal Interventions, Lisa Forsberg
3. The Importance of Context in Thinking About Crime Preventing Neurointerventions, Matt Matravers
4. Coercion and the Neurocorrective Offer, Jonathan Pugh
Part Two: Defending CPNs and Diffusing Objections
5. Moral Liability to Crime-Preventing Neurointervention, Jeff McMahan
6. Neurointerventions, Self-Ownership, and Enforcement Rights, Peter Vallentyne
7. The Self-Ownership Trilemma, Extended Minds, and Neurointerventions, Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen
8. Moral Paternalism and Neurointerventions, Emma Bullock
9. Neuroscientific Treatment of Criminals and Penal Theory, Jesper Ryberg
10. Chemical Castration and the Violation of Sexual Rights, Hallie Liberto
11. Neural and Environmental Modulation of Motivation: What's the Moral Difference?, Thomas Douglas
12. Containing Violence and Controlling Desire, John McMillan
13. Neurointerventions, Morality and Children, Mathew Clayton and Andres Moles
Part Three: Against CPNs
14. Intrusive Intervention and Opacity Respect, Christopher Bennett
15. Those Who Forget the Past: An Ethical Challenge from the History of Treating Deviance, Emily McTernan
16. 'The Soul Is the Prison of the Body': Mandatory Moral Enhancement, Punishment and Rights Against Neuro-Rehabilitation, Jan Christoph Bublitz
17. Against the Mandatory Use of Neurointerventions in Criminal Sentencing, Elizabeth Shaw
18. Should Coercive Neurointerventions Target the Victims of Wrongdoing?, Zofia Stemplowska
19. Can Neurointerventions Communicate Censure? (And so what if they can t?), David Birks