Can Medical Interventions Serve as ‘Criminal Rehabilitation’?

Abstract

‘Moral bioenhancement’ refers to the use of pharmaceuticals and other direct brain interventions to enhance ‘moral’ traits such as ‘empathy,’ and alter any ‘morally problematic’ dispositions, such as ‘aggression.’ This is believed to result in improved moral responses. In a recent paper, Tom Douglas considers whether medical interventions of this sort could be “provided as part of the criminal justice system’s response to the commission of crime, and for the purposes of facilitating rehabilitation (Douglas in Journal of Ethics 18(2): 101–122, 2014).” He suggests that they could “at least in some cases, permissibly be provided without valid consent (Douglas in Journal of Ethics 18(2): 101–122, 2014)” as a form of rehabilitative punishment. He argues for this conclusion by ‘parity of reasoning,’ starting from the currently accepted practice of non-consensual incarceration. His argument appears to be dependent on the successful defence of the following two claims: (1) that non-consensual incarceration is a morally justifiable practice, and (2) that there is no meaningful distinction between the forcible imposition of this practice, and the forcible imposition of medical interventions on prisoners. From both claims, he deduces (3): if non-consensual incarceration is morally justifiable, so is the non-consensual imposition of medical correctives, in some cases. In this paper, I begin by suggesting that the basic argument behind the Parity Claim (2) results in a reductio ad absurdum, whereby any practice that is sufficiently similar to incarceration in the ways Douglas presents, would also be considered permissible. This appears to be an unpalatable conclusion, casting doubt on the soundness of a key premise. Douglas appears to offer no means of deciding which practices are sufficiently similar to incarceration in terms of harm and threat to agency, and of the practices that I will present, which do seem to be, it does not seem that he could rule them out in any principled way. Next I turn to dispute claim (1) relating to the purported justifiability of incarceration on rehabilitative grounds. If successful, this attack causes a break in reasoning from the justifiability of incarceration, to the justifiability of medical interventions (2). Medical interventions would then require an alternative, independent justification, through outlining the ways in which they are conducive to a particular aim of punishment, without relying on the justifiability of incarceration. This argument has not been provided, and I suggest that attempts to do so may run into difficulty. I untangle and make explicit the various assumptions made in Douglas’ contention that medical interventions “might be thought conducive to rehabilitation in some offenders,” locating my critique in the wider debate on the causes of crime. Finally, I seek to challenge the normative weight of the Parity Claim (2), arguing that to show that two practices are comparable in some sense is not sufficient to show that both are equally as permissible (3). Other social pu...

Frequently overlooked realistic moral bioenhancement interventions

“…She claimed that two unusual punishments for criminals—making them relive their crimes from the victim’s perspective or making them sleep for half of the day—are justified under Douglas’s reasoning as long as they do not involve more suffering and coercion than Douglas’s idea of ‘minimal incarceration’, so that reasoning must be mistaken. But by Barn’s admission, even those punishments inflict minimal suffering and coercion—less than most prisoners already experience 34. No intervention I recommend for mandatory MBE is invasive (puncturing the body) or likely to harm recipients by reducing their health or capabilities at the doses I recommend.…”

“…However, Douglas33 showed that almost any argument for protecting this right of violent offenders extends to protecting their freedom of movement and association, which imprisonment already violates. Barn34 replied that criminals’ bodily integrity is indeed analogous to those freedoms because neither should be violated on rehabilitative grounds. Yet, even if imprisonment is unjustifiable, rehabilitation including MBE may be a better alternative to prison.…”

“…Yet, even if imprisonment is unjustifiable, rehabilitation including MBE may be a better alternative to prison. Against this, Barn gave four objections: (1) one must first show that rehabilitative MBE works, (2) rehabilitation should focus on the social and not the biological causes of crime, (3) MBE cannot replace prison because not all crimes are immoral and (4) the social stigma from MBE might make it too harmful to justify 34…”

Neuroenhancement, the Criminal Justice System, and the Problem of Alienation

“…With the exception of retribution, criticisms of criminal justice policies and practices usually rather relate to the means by which the goals are strived aftersuch as mass incarcerationthan to the acceptability of the goals themselves (see e.g. [51][52][53][54]). Accordingly, it would seem that even neuroenhanced criminal justice authorities would strive after goals such as those just listed above.…”

Nonconsensual Neurocorrectives and Bodily Integrity: a Reply to Shaw and Barn

“…Two papers in this issue raise a number of objections to my argument, and I am grateful to their authors—Elizabeth Shaw and Gulzaar Barn—for subjecting it to critical scrutiny [ 2 , 3 ]. In this article, I respond to some of their objections, beginning with those offered by Shaw.…”