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Incarceration, Direct Brain Intervention, and the Right to Mental Integrity – a Reply to Thomas Douglas

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Abstract

In recent years, direct brain interventions (DBIs) have shown increased success in manipulating neurobiological processes often associated with moral reasoning and decision-making. As current DBIs are refined, and new technologies are developed, the state will have an interest in administering DBIs to criminal offenders for rehabilitative purposes. However, it is generally assumed that the state is not justified in directly intruding in an offender’s brain without valid consent. Thomas Douglas challenges this view. The state already forces criminal offenders to go to jail without their consent. This represents a serious interference with an offender’s rights. If criminal offenders are already morally liable to incarceration, why is the state not also entitled to administer DBIs without consent for the purposes of rehabilitation? Douglas argument focuses on the right to ‘bodily integrity’. He argues that there is no compelling reason to believe that bodily rights that protect an offender from non-consensual DBIs are stronger than rights that protect an offender from incarceration. This paper will extend Douglas’ analysis. It will consider the more fundamental right to ‘mental integrity’. The right to mental integrity defends an inner sphere of liberty. It protects critical capacities necessary for the exercise of autonomous human agency—without which a vast majority of moral rights could not exist. Thus, the right to mental integrity is ultimately more important for a moral assessment of DBIs. The right strongly suggests that both presently, and in the future, there may be many cases in which the state is not entitled to administer DBIs to criminal offenders without valid consent.

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Notes

  1. See, for example, Starson v. Swayze, 2003 SCC 32.

  2. See, for example, Mental Health Act 1983 (U.K.) c. 20, s. 58(3).

  3. See Washington v. Harper, (1990) 494 U.S. 210 (US Supreme Court).

  4. See, for example, Criminal Code of Canada, R.S.C. 1985, c. C-46 (Canada) s. 672.58; see also Sell v. United States, (2003) 539 U.S. 166 (US Supreme Court).

  5. See, for example, Cal. Penal Code § 645 (West Supp. 1997) (California), which requires criminal offenders to submit to chemical castration. It has been suggested such procedures are “symbolically retributive” ([13] p. 17). Interventions to prevent sexual offenders from re-offending have been used for years. Drug treatment programs for serious addiction have also been increasingly used as part of criminal sentencing and parole.

  6. Douglas notes that it is possible certain rights, such as the right to be free from torture, never lose their protective force ([7] p. 105).

  7. Douglas’ analysis specifically considers medical correctives. He defines a medical corrective as the administration of a non-specific “biologically active, non-food substance” in response to the commission of a particular crime for the purpose of facilitating rehabilitation ([7] p. 105). Subsequent analysis of Douglas’ argument will focus specifically medical correctives insofar as they represent drugs that could be classified as DBIs.

  8. Douglas defines minimal incarceration as confinement to an institution that constrains movement and association, but does not involve dangerous conditions and allows reasonable opportunities for political participation and education ([7] p. 105).

  9. It is important to note that while Douglas mentions these views, there is nothing to suggest that he expressly adopts or endorses either a theory of extended cognition or the view that direct and indirect forms of mental interference should be treated as ethically on-par.

  10. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Part I of the Constitution Act, 1982, being Schedule B of the Canada Act 1982 (U.K.), 1982, c. 11, s. 2(b).

  11. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, G.A. Res. 217A (III), U.N. Doc. A/810 at 71 (1948) Art. 29.

  12. Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey (1992) 505 U.S. 833 (US Supreme Court).

  13. In this respect, Douglas is correct in identifying that in assessing the implications of non-consensual DBIs, interference with agency is an important consideration ([7] p. 105, 117), but in extending his analysis beyond bodily rights to mental rights, requires a fuller account of autonomous human agency.

  14. The necessary or sufficient conditions for autonomous human agency are widely debated. To date, they defy satisfactory consensus or resolution. Moreover, traditional conceptions of the mind and human freedom, or free-will, are not without metaphysical problems. In the current literature, advancements in neuroscience and physics have reignited questions about whether a scientific view of the universe can accommodate traditional views about the place of the mind in the natural world, or traditional notions of human agency, freedom, and responsibility [39, 40]. Given strong metaphysical commitments to eliminative neuroreductionism, it is possible that there is no significant difference between brain states and mental states, or between a right to bodily integrity, and a right to mental integrity. Further, given a commitment to or hard incompatibilism, it is possible that the traditional conceptions of human agency, at least insofar as they are premised some traditional notions of free-will, might not demand the same protective force. This paper will not address the metaphysical debate surrounding these issues in depth, and as Bublitz and Merkel suggest, in assessing rights to mental integrity analysis this paper has sought to avoid reserve strong metaphysical commitments [33, 41, 42].

  15. Reference to a “Road to Damascus event” is borrowed from Levy ([24] p. 179).

  16. Further, to the extent that it results in risks to health or safety, there is some question as to whether it would be suitable for administration to criminal offenders.

  17. On some theories, it might be suggested that an offender waives his or her rights upon committing an offense. This distinction cannot be considered in depth here, but whether rights are seen to be waived, or limited, it might be argued that the same considerations would apply at the first stage of analysis.

  18. For example, some clinical disorders, such as severe addiction, obsessive compulsive disorders, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia severely undermine core features of agency. Conditions such as psychopathy or anti-social personality disorder would represent a different class of cases, particularly given the fact that there is currently no effective treatment. However, if effective treatment is developed, the prospect of DBI in such cases would present many issues that would bear careful consideration within the proposed framework.

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    Jared N. Craig

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Craig, J.N. Incarceration, Direct Brain Intervention, and the Right to Mental Integrity – a Reply to Thomas Douglas. Neuroethics 9, 107–118 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12152-016-9255-x

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