Let’s assume that the purposes of incarceration and neurointervention are the same—to make it unlikely that the criminal will commit the same offense. Incarceration and neurointervention, however, also have harmful effects, like the harm done to the criminal’s mental integrity (HARM). David Birks and Alena Buyx’s thesis (2018) is that neurointervention is morally problematic in ways that incarceration is not because one cannot administer a neurointervention without also intending HARM, whereas one can incarcerate without also intending HARM. To ground this difference in intentionality, Birks and Buyx rely on the constitutive-causal distinction. They argue that because HARM is constitutive of neurointervention it is impossible to administer a neurointervention without intending HARM, whereas HARM is merely causally related to incarceration so it is possible to incarcerate without intending HARM.
展开▼
