Mental Integrity and Intentional Side Effects

摘要

To begin, Birks and Buyx (2018) view is that mandatory neurointerventions constitute a morally objectionable type of interference on a criminal offender’s mental states or desires. Recognizing that we “ought to harm offenders by punishing them,” the authors conclude that as a type of punishment, mandatory neurointerventions cause harms that are relevantly different from and worse than incarceration (Birks and Buyx 2018). A criminal offender has an interest in mental integrity, which is an “interest in not having at least some of his mental states intentionally altered by others in certain ways” (Birks and Buyx 2018, 133). These mandatory neurointerventions are harmful—worse than incarceration—since they are a non-autonomous method for altering an offender’s desire. Moreover, the side effects of pharmaceutical or biotechnological neurointerventions, in principle, cannot be avoided and, based on a constitutive account, are foreseen and intended. For these reasons, Birks and Buyx contend that mandatory neurointerventions are an impermissible type of punishment.